Page 4 of Insomnia

“Wait.” Last we heard from Phoebe she was living in Spain and working for some property firm. “You’ve been back afew months? And this is the first time you get in touch? For fuck’s sake, Phoebe.” God, she makes me so mad. I’m too busy to be here and she should have known better than to make me come. I turn away, storming back down the corridor. The nurse is by the desk gesturing at the signing-in book. “Emma bloody Averell!” I shout at her as I pass. She can sign me in and out herself.

I lean against my car, the breeze cooling the anger burning me up inside. Visiting time must be over because people from all walks of life come past me heading to their cars. Some have been here to see their mothers, no doubt. I am the worst daughter in the car park. The worst daughter of the worst mother. But I’m not the worst sister. I can’t even put my feelings into words. This is a proper kicker from Phoebe. Visitingher? And not even telling me she was back?

“Emma!” She’s coming toward me. “Wait!”

“I can’t talk to you right now, Phoebe, I just can’t.” I don’t have the energy for a public car park confrontation with my own sister.

“I knew you’d be like this.”

“Don’t turn this around on me. I’m always here for you.Always.It’s you who stays away.”

“If that makes you feel better, then keep telling yourself that.” It’s her turn to flash an angry look. “And I’ve been there for you plenty of times too. Back before you had all this.” She nods at my new car.

“What happened to the life in Spain? The job?”

“It was my boss’s idea to come. They said it would be healing to spend time with her.”

“But not with me.” I’m cold and she’s defensive.

“I really don’t have to explain my life choices to you, Emma. I also knew you’d be shitty about me seeingher. As it is she was pretty catatonic just like she’s been since then and—”

“I don’t want to know about her. I don’t care about her.” I pull open my car door.I’m nearly forty, too old to be so frightened of the monster. “But you? You hurt my feelings, Phoebe.”

“Oh, like you care about seeing me. Look at you. New car. New house. Flashy life. Always so busy. Saw that piece in the paper about you. Rising legal star. Your feelings aren’t hurt. You just like to be in control of everything.” She looks so bitter and I can’t be bothered to go through our same old arguments again. “Anyway.” She takes a step back. “She’s in a very bad way,” she says. “Maybe seeing her would do you some good. Give you some closure. Let all that fear out.”

“I’m not afraid.” I throw my bag onto the passenger seat and get in.

“Sure you are,” Phoebe holds the door open momentarily, her dark eyes sharp, a hint of a smile on her lips. “You’re forty in a week or so. You’ve always been afraid of that.”

“Have a safe trip back to Spain, Phoebe,” I say, before pulling the car door closed hard and quickly starting the engine. I can see her in the rearview mirror, watching me drive away, and I’m sure she’s smiling.

How could she bring up my birthday like that?

She’s a bitch. What a bitch.

4.

I keep my eyes forward as I join the queue of traffic crawling toward the exit. Phoebe always said that turning forty didn’t bother her, but she dropped out of a steady job and cut off contact—what intermittent contact we ever had—a while before hers and it transpired she went to a cooking retreat somewhere in Eastern Europe, which was the least Phoebe thing she had ever done, so she can say what she likes, it bothered her too.

She’s been basically absent ever since. To me, anyway. And now, right before my own fortieth birthday, she expects me to suddenly, after all these years, want to spend time withour mother.I can’t get my head around it.

It’s lunchtime and the traffic heading to the roundabout is in a slow stop-start, disgruntled drivers moody in the muggy heat. I turn the air-conditioning up. I need to get myself together.

She smashed her head against the mirror in her room.

As I turn left, the traffic finally picks up. I try to focus on the mountain of work waiting for me at the office and how I’m going to have to lie to everyone about why I was at the hospital, because as far as they know my mother is already dead. I’m going to have to pretend Phoebe had an accident or something, but my mind keeps coming back toher.Our mother. The age-old jokes—Whatare you scared of? Turning forty. Turning into my mother—all terrifyingly true for me.

Forty has always loomed like a specter in my life—more so for me than for Phoebe, because Phoebe was never called themad childby our mother. It was me she’d whisper to sometimes, that I’d go mad like her, hissed in my face as her fingers dug too tightly into my arms. That I had thebad bloodtoo. It ran in the family.

Most of what I recall of my childhood with our mother are vague snippets except for that last day. Phoebe remembers more, but she was eight to my five. We were much more like sisters then. Bonded. And then that night came and broke us all up.

It’s the morning I remember the clearest. The last morning. I can feel the rough carpet under my knees as we made a card with a big 40 on the front that Phoebe drew so carefully, and I colored in, and then her taking my hand, holding it firm as we went downstairs.

For a moment I’m back there, lost in the memory, and then a blaring horn pulls me into the present. Work. I need to get to work. But even as I park I can sense the ghost of my mother emerging from the darker corners of my mind, and can almost feel Phoebe’s hand gripping mine, pulling me away from her.

“You look just like her.”

I wish they’d both let bloody go.

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