Page 6 of Insomnia

“Mum,” Chloe throws one hand dramatically on a hip. “Come on!”

“It’s only about twenty people,” Robert says. “Nothing major.”

“Fine.” I know I’m beaten and Chloe’s already had two responses on the Facebook event invite. If we canceled now it would look weird. “Okay. But you should have asked me first.”

I can picture them rolling their eyes at each other as I head off to find Will, and I know I maybe overreacted, but my stomach is in a knot.

Forty. It’s really coming. And there’s nothing I can do about it.Just a number,I tell myself, as I feel the chill fingers of dread on my spine.Just a number.It’ll be here and gone before I know it.

Will’s just about finished finally brushing his teeth, a clown’s smile of toothpaste around his mouth, when he pulls his lip down and studies his bottom teeth and then the top.

“No loose ones yet?” I’m not sure what he wants most, to have that first gap, like some of his friends, or a visit from the tooth fairy. Whichever, or both, Will’s been feeling very short-changed by his still structurally sound molars.

He shakes his head, disappointed. “I thought my fuzzy head would make them wobble.”

I touch his forehead. He’s not hot and he doesn’t look too pale. I look at his pupils, but they’re both fine too. “Did you have a headache?”

“Just fuzzy.”

“Gone now?” Maybe he’s coming down with something. He hasn’t had a bug for a while and is probably due. He shrugs, frustratingly noncommittal, and heads off to his bedroom.

He choosesPaddington Goes to Hospitalfrom the box set of his favorites, and as we snuggle together, him under his dinosaur duvet and me laying on it, the book choice sours my pleasure of the moment. Paddington bangs his head with a boomerang and has to go to the hospital.She smashed her head against the mirror.

Will’s warm and comforting on my chest and as soon as the story is done I hand the book over, so he can study the pictures and words by himself for a bit. It’s good to have a few quiet moments before heading back downstairs for dinner. Chloe’s going for a sleepover at her friend Andrea’s, so it will just be me and Robert. He’s going to ask how my day was, and however I answer, there’s going to be a lie involved. I can’t exactly tell him what happened with Phoebe, because as far as he knows—as far as he’s ever known—our mother is dead. I told him the lie when we first met back when I was twenty-one, and Phoebe went along with it and I haven’t regretted it. Would he understand if I explained? Probably. But I don’t want my mother’s story to be any part of my life.

I’ll suggest a film. He’ll nod off, or, more likely, I will. Whateverwe do, I don’t want to think abouther.Or Phoebe. And yet here I am, thinking about them. I drift into the past again, to that last day, the family scrapbook in my head rolling fast through the pages.

“Mummy?”

I’m so zoned out I don’t hear Will at first.

“Mummy,” he says again, and his tone startles me back into the moment. He wriggles against me. “You’re holding me too tight.” And I am. I can feel the tension of my arm around him, my fingers digging into his shoulder. Squeezing far too hard.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, baby.” I let go immediately, shocked and appalled. I’ve never seen him look at me like that before, with that confused wariness. I don’t like it at all. “I was miles away. Do you want anotherPaddington?”

He smiles, sunshine after clouds, and I switch the books out. By the time the bear has doneThe Grand Tour,Mummy’s odd moment is forgotten and he’s snuggled into me.Mummy’s odd moments. I don’t want to think about those.

We have sex. It’s fine and practiced in a paint-by-numbers way, everything done in the right order so Robert and I both finish satisfied, the routine we’ve fallen into over the years. There’s less sex now, and even less since Will was born and, awful as it sounds, when we finish, I’m already crossing it off my mental to-do list for the week.

Robert goes to the loo after me and in the lamplight I can see that the bedroom needs vacuuming and the laundry basket is overflowing. It’s not that different downstairs. This, combined with his snappiness when I mentioned getting Will’s gym clothes washed on the right day, and the general air of resentful distance that’s crept in between us, is giving me the distinct impression that Robert isn’t as happy being the stay-at-home parent the second timearound as he was the first, but this was the deal we made all those years ago. He wanted this big house but it’s my job that pays for it. Maybe we should think about getting a cleaner, but that’s just more expense. There is a tension between us these days, that’s for sure, and I don’t know when it began, but now I’m getting irritated at him too. I’ll vacuum in the morning, I decide. Just get it done, even though I can’t help but wonder why it always has to be the woman who ends up sorting everything at home. But first, I need to sleep away this crazy day.

6.

TEN DAYS UNTIL MY BIRTHDAY

I didn’t sleep. I was still awake at four thirty, and then as daylight broke I catnapped for a couple of hours before all the noise in the house dragged me out of bed at seven. By the time we get to the barbecue at three I’m knackered.

“Emma, you look tired!” It’s the first thing Michelle says as she opens the door to us and I want to poke her in her bright perfectly made-up eyes.

“Busy week,” I say. “And I didn’t sleep great.”

“Have you tried chamomile tea?”

“I’ll give it a go,” I say, politely. Michelle is one of those women who has a suggestion for everything and in the main, they’re pretty useless. I’m hoping I don’t need to try it.

She leads us through to the kitchen, where the bifold doors are opened up onto their beautiful garden. “I find that works.” She glances back. “With a splash of vodka in it.”

I let Robert lead as we go to join the others. The school gate gang. They’re Robert’s friends more than mine, although as he points out, “the girls” are always inviting me to drinks or dinners or theater trips, but working ten- or twelve-hour days I rarely take them up on it.

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