Page 50 of Insomnia

“Yeah. I think I do,” I say. “I don’t suppose my mother ever painted?”

“Not exactly.” She gives me a sideways, secretive glance. “I didn’t show the other one, what did you say her name was Phoebe? I didn’t like her. But I’ll show you, Emma.”

“Thank you.” I pause, and frown. “How do you know my name?” I’m pretty sure Julie didn’t say it. Not in here anyway.

“The other one, Phoebe...” Sandra talks while rummaging back in the drawer. “She was sly. Didn’t know I could lip-read.”

“Sorry, I don’t understand.” What has lipreading got to do with Phoebe?

“Things happened when I was little. I don’t talk about them.” She suddenly tugs at her hair, pulling a few strands free before looking over her shoulder, guilty, waiting to be caught. No one is looking. “But I learned to read lips. Had to.”

“You don’t have to tell me about that. But what do you mean Phoebe was sly?”

“She smiled a lot. I never trust people who smile a lot when they visit here. It’s not fucking Center Parcs.” I laugh at that and she grins at me, before her face clouds again. “She’d sit there, holding Pat’s hand, all calm and caring, but I watched her. Looked like she was just chatting away, telling her about life outside, things Pat was never going to understand or care about, and she probably didn’t even know who your sister was. It’s not like you two have been filling up the visitors’ book.”

She looks at me as if I might try to defend myself but I can’t argue with that. “And it’s not like she was exactly always mentally here,” she finishes. “But anyway, that Phoebe was smiling and holding Pat’s hand with the nurses all thinking the sun shone out of her skinny arse for coming here and forgiving the poor old woman, but all the time she’s talking quietly and I could see what she was saying.Bitch. Wish you’d just die. I can never forgive you. I hate you. Those were the best things. There were worse words. Crude. Vicious.”

I stare at her. “Phoebe? She was saying all this?”

Sandra nods. “I’m glad she hasn’t come back. She’s lucky weonly have plastic cutlery ’cause I’d do her some damage with a fork if I saw her again.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

She looks at me as if I’m the one who should be locked up for suggesting that and then pulls a sheet of paper out from her drawer. It’s tucked into a folded drawing. Hidden.

“It’s not a drawing. It’s why I didn’t show anyone. I don’t think she wanted people to see it. I hadn’t even noticed her doing it. It was just there, the other day, after she’d wheeled herself away to stare out the window.”

She hands me the paper and with my heart pounding, I unfold it. My breath catches. The handwriting is all spidery scrawl, but it’s my name, written over and over, in sharp, shaky capitals until it filled the page, the word overlapping, and a few had been scratched out.

EMMA. EMMA. EMMA.

“That’s how I knew your name.” She shrugs. “Figured you had to be Emma.”

“When did she do this?” I ask her, staring. My name. Emma. The last word I ever heard my mother say.

Sandra says nothing for a moment, chewing her bottom lip. “The day she bashed her brains out against the mirror. You must have been on her mind.”

The world spins again.

“Sorry, for keeping you hanging around.” Julie bustles in, smiling. “Ah, has Sandra been keeping you company? She’s very good at making sure everyone is feeling comfortable. Now, where were we? I can show you—”

“Actually, I should probably head back now,” I say, folding thepaper up tight in my damp palms. Sandra doesn’t ask for it back and I don’t know if I want to keep it or throw it as far away from me as possible, but I can’t get my fingers to uncurl from it. “It’s all been a bit overwhelming.” That isn’t a lie. I am overwhelmed.

“Of course. I can imagine. I’ll take you back.”

I glance at Sandra. My hands are shaking again. “Thank you. And your art is wonderful. Joyful. I’d buy one.” Her face bursts into a genuine smile, and then she’s back at her board and I’m following Julie’s bustling figure out into the corridor while my head spins and my face heats up. When we leave the building, the breeze is a relief and I gulp in the fresh air, happy to be away fromherair. Julie doesn’t say much. Maybe they preferred Phoebe with her cool, controlled manner to me and my obvious unease.

At least she came before her mother died.And she was the one with the most to forgive.

41.

There’s a cold sweat under my T-shirt and I hold it together until I’ve driven away from the facility, but about a mile down the road I see a turnout and pull in, turn the air-conditioning up to high, and take some deep breaths as the cold air slowly calms me down. It’s surreal to have been in the place where my mother lived—to have seen where she slept and ate and even socialized as much as she could—but none of that is what’s tipped me over the edge.

Phoebe. Holier than fucking thou Phoebe.Go and see her. . . it might do you good—or whatever it was she said to me. What a fucking joke. I grab my phone to call her, and my fury quells my nausea as it starts to ring. The call goes to voice mail.

“Fuck you, Phoebe.” I’m so angry my voice is shaking. “I’ve just been to Hartwell. I know what you were doing up there. The things you were saying while pretending to be all Goody Two-shoes. You think I’m crazy? What is wrong withyou,Phoebe? What are you doing back here?” I’m about to hang up when my anger simmers over and I shriek, “And stay the fuck away from my family or I swear to god I’ll kill you!” into the phone.

I’m panting loudly in the car. Where is she now? At work? At my house? I remember her and Robert hugging in my kitchen. Is shecomfortingmy husband? As I pull away from the turnout I callRobert. Screw waiting for him to make the first move. He might not want me at home, but I don’t wantherthere either. A newherin my head. No longer my dead mother, now my older sister.

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