Page 25 of Insomnia

“I’m nearly forty,” I say, and she smiles.

“I’m nearly fifty. Perspective is a great thing. But seriously. Why is that troubling you?”

“It’s nothing to do with the getting older.” I take a sip of water. “I’ll be very happy when forty is behind me. I’ve been afraid of turning forty all my life. It’s not the age, it’s because of my mother.”

She leans back in her chair and waits for me to elaborate.

“My childhood wasn’t great. Not the early years anyway. My dad—well, I have no idea who he was, really. My sister, Phoebe, claims to remember him vaguely, but I don’t. He left not long after I was born and then he died a little while after. Apparently a lot went wrong after I was born. My mum? She could have filled up your appointments until retirement and I don’t think you’d have scratched the surface of fixing her. She’s—shewas—a very broken woman. Before I came along my sister claims our mother was almost normal, not that Phoebe could possibly remember that. I think she just says it so she can have something that I can’t. Anyway, whatisclear is that if she was a little cracked before I was born, my mother properly broke afterward. By the time I was five, and in the last few days as Mum got close to her fortieth birthday, she was—”

I hesitate and then decide to go with the blunt truth. “She was insane. Muttering to herself. Not sleeping. Phoebe would help me dress for school, make sure I got fed, try to shelter me a little.” I’m appalled to feel tears stinging the backs of my eyes thinking about me and Phoebe back then, when all we had was each other. “But there was no hiding place for either of us.” I take a breath and continue. “I think the court’s verdict was that on the night of her fortieth birthday she was in the grip of a complete psychotic break.”

If Dr. Morris is surprised, she doesn’t show it. “My mother used to tell me that I would go mad,” I continue. “Like her. She said itover and over. She never said it about Phoebe. Only me. Happened to my great-aunt, then to her, and it was going to happen to me. And maybe she was right. I’m nearly forty and now I’m not sleeping either.”

“Where is your mother now?” she asks.

“Dead. She’s spent the past thirty years or so in a secure unit. But she died yesterday. Right after I’d seen her for the first time since the night of her fortieth birthday.” I hiccup a laugh that sounds like a sob.

“How did she die?”

“Self-inflicted brain bleed.”

“I’m sorry.” She pauses. “And how do you and your sister feel about that?”

When I answer, I’m like a tap that’s been too tightly wound for years and now that it’s loosened everything is pouring out. I talk about Phoebe’s visiting our mother and not telling me, I stumble my way through what actually happened on the day and night of our mother’s fortieth birthday, and how I think Phoebe has always resented me for it, and how whatever closeness we had back then was lost years ago when we went into different foster homes.

I say how that memory of my mother telling me I’d go mad like her coats me like grease on the inside of an oven, dirty and hidden. I tell her about when Phoebe and I shared a flat briefly when I was at university, and how one night, drunk, she brought a boy home from a bar, and how when Phoebe fell asleep, me and the boy stayed up talking and by morning we were halfway in love and now we have two children, and are in the main happy, but recently I’ve felt as if he’s started to resent me too and maybe I feel the same about him.

She listens patiently as the clock ticks round and she spots how I pick at the skin around my fingernail as I talk about my insomnia and the dread it fills me with and the need to check on my children. I even end up telling her about my mother’s numbers and the Dictaphone and my scrawling them on the backsplash. If she didn’t think I was crazy at the start, she must now.

“No wonder you’re stressed,” she says at last. “That’s an awful lot to be dealing with. All things considered, I think you’re coping admirably.”

“You do?” I was half-expecting her to be calling Hartwell House and telling them she had another Bournett to replace the one they just lost.

“I do. And you’re also dealing with the loss of a mother with whom you had a complicated relationship—”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“But it’s still a loss. Even if you didn’t love her, which is also perfectly fine—there’s no obligation to love someone, even a relative—you can still be experiencing grief. She has been a weight on you for a long time and now she’s gone and you’re not sure how tobewithout that. I think we should book some more sessions in. This isn’t a quick fix. This is a massive childhood trauma that you’re dealing with.”

“Sure. Of course. I’ll call by the end of the week and sort something out.” I pause. “And the sleeping pills?”

She scribbles out a prescription. “This is for two weeks and we’ll review after that. Take one, an hour before you go to bed. And don’t drink alcohol with them. If you start sleeping better, then cut down to a half and see how you go. You want to take these for the shortest amount of time possible, okay? It’s easy to get too attached to them. Give me a call later when you’ve checked your work diary and we can fit in another session for next week. Hopefully by then a few good nights’ sleep will have cracked the nighttime anxiety.”

She smiles at me as if there reallyisn’tanything to worry about, and I’m giddy with relief.

“Thanks so much. I actually feel a bit better already. Aside from the shattering tiredness.”

She leads me out and as we go down the corridor to the lift, nods toward another door. “I may have a client foryouas it goes. One of my colleagues is heading toward divorce and asked me if I’d recommend someone. I’ll send him to you as and when.”

“Great.” The lift pings. “And thank you. For everything. It’s been so good to be able to talk about this. Sometimes I feel, well, that I have to hold everything together for everyone and it gets overwhelming, and I wouldn’t know where to start talking to Robert about my mother. I can’t even remember the last time Ididreally talk about her.”

“I’m glad to have helped.”

23.

I go straight to the pharmacy and get my prescription. Dr. Morris is right. Iwillfeel better about everything after a good night’s sleep. Then I’ll tackle Phoebe and find out why she scared Will with tales of madwomen in bedrooms. And maybe I can persuade her to see a shrink too. We’re both damaged, it doesn’t take a doctorate in psychiatry for anyone who knows our history to know that.

I’m heading out when I see a woman I’m sure I know standing by the vitamins and sleep aid counter. I stare, wondering for a moment if she’s a client, then I remember, just as she looks up to see me staring at her. It’sher.The woman who brought my wallet back.

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