Page 32 of Insomnia

“Not tonight.”

“I’ll see you out.” Robert ushers them toward the corridor. I wait until they’ve gone and turn to face my sister.

“Emma, if you did anything—” she starts, but I cut across her.

“What did you say to Will, Phoebe?” I take a half step toward her. “Why would you scare him like that? Why would you tell him about what our mother did? And why now? Just before my birthday? What is wrong with you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice is low and cold. “And don’t make this about me.” She glances over her shoulder, checking we’re alone. “You’re not sleeping, are you? That’s what Robert says. And you’re paranoid. Why would I tell Will anything about that? I’m not insane.” The word hangs between us. “But what is wrong withyou,Emma?” she asks. “I think maybe you need help. I worry about your family.”

My face burns hot with anger. She’s one breath away from calling me crazy. “This ismyfamily,” I hiss at her. “Not yours. They’llneverbe yours, however much you think they should be.” I take another step forward. “You think everything is easy for me. That it’s not fair that I have this and you have nothing, but that’s just your excuse to yourself. Nothing was easy for me either, Phoebe. It’s all been hard work. Relationships are hard work. Children are hard work. Having a bloody career is hard work. But I put the hours in, Phoebe, and that’s the difference between you and me. You think the world owes you because of what our mother did. Because of our childhood. Because you were the eldest. The world doesn’t owe anyone. I went out and worked hard for what I have. And so you can fuck off, Phoebe. You can fuck right off. Starting now. Get out of my house.”

She grabs her jacket from the back of a stool. “You were the last person to see her, Emma,” she says. “And the police don’t turn up for no reason. And this crap about her grabbing your wrist. Honestly? It. Wasn’t. Possible. Only in your head maybe. I don’t know what’s going on with you but good luck, Mrs. Get-what-you-want-whatever-the-cost, Mrs. Never-to-blame. Maybe our mother was right to worry. Maybe you are going mad like her.”

I slap her face so hard that my hand stings and her cheek goes instantly blotchy in the fraction of a second I can see it before her own hand protects it.

Neither of us speaks, the slap ringing between us, and before I can bring myself to say something, she’s gone. I see Chloe in the doorway, staring at me like I’m a stranger, as Phoebe disappears toward the front door.

“This is so fucked up,” Chloe says before running up the stairs to the sanctuary of her bedroom. I don’t blame her. I don’t blame her at all.

Robert comes back into the kitchen and we look at each other for a long moment. I wait for him to start shouting, but when he speaks, he’s calm, and that disturbs me more.

“Haven’t you got anything to say?” He looks exhausted—as if he knows anything about exhaustion—lost, and warily suspicious.

“I didn’t kill her.” It’s such a ludicrous sentence to have to say out loud.I did not murder my mother.

“That’s not what I’m talking about. You told me she was dead. All those years ago, you said she died when you were little.”

“Well, she’s dead now.” My flippancy is brittle.

“It’s not bloody funny, Emma. Why didn’t you tell me she was alive?” He’s looking at me as if maybe I’ve been a stranger all these years. I fill the kettle to make us some tea. A nice cup of tea, the great savior of every emotional trauma in the English nation. I’m not sure it’s likely to cure anything today but at least I can turn away from him while making it. I shrug. Where to start?It was none of your fucking business? “It was a long time ago. It was easier that way. It was private.”

“I would have understood your never wanting to talk about her,” he says, sounding far from understanding. “If you’d told me what she’d done.”

“How do you know what she did?” I look back at him and suddenly the answer is obvious. “Oh, Phoebe told you.”

“Not much. Only how your mother was suffocating her when you found them. The police spoke to her first today and she figured it would probably look better for you if I knew what really happened before they got here.”

“I’m sure.” Always thinking of me, that’s Phoebe. It obviously hasn’t occurred to him that she could have calledmefirst and then I could have told him myself.

“I didn’t tell you because she didn’t deserve to be part of us.She wasn’t even really part of me. I was so young.” I’m appalled to feel hot tears welling up as my breath hitches. “And honestly, I don’t even know why I went to see her. Phoebe told me it would make me feel better and then I couldn’t get it out of my head, so I did, and now I have all this shit to deal with.”

He finally gets up and puts his arms around me, my face pressing into the familiarity of his chest. “It’s a mistake, that’s all. The swab results will come back fine.” His words are comforting but he doesn’t sound that convinced. “I’ll cancel your birthday drinks in the morning. Let’s just get through this.” He gives me a half-hearted squeeze and then I’m alone again. “Time for bed,” he says, still not quite able to meet my eyes. “Get a good night’s sleep so we can face tomorrow head-on.”

“Maybe we can watch something funny on your iPad while we fall asleep?” I don’t want to talk anymore, but I do want to be close to him, to feel like there’s somebody on my side in this.

“Good idea. I’ll go and talk to Chloe. Let her know that it’s nothing to get in a stress over.”

“I’ll bring the tea up.”

“Thanks.” He gives me a wan smile. “We’re just having a weird week.”

That’s one way of putting it,I think as he heads upstairs. I look down and my hands are shaking. Can the police seriously think I killed my mother? Does Phoebe? I take a deep breath. How am I going to explain this to Buckley at work tomorrow?

As the tea brews I get my phone out and see all the missed calls from Robert and notice a text way back from Phoebe telling me to call her, whichdidcome in before Robert’s and now I feel even worse about slapping her. My hand tingles as I think about it. I really slapped her. Now she probablydoesthink I did away with our mother.

There’s also a text from Parker Stockwell hoping everything is okay. That’s another situation I’m going to have to deal with. Miranda drunk in the restroom seems like a lifetime ago. She’d love this twist of events. The realization that my life is far from perfect right now too.

I look out through the kitchen window. The summer night is finally falling and my nerves are stretched too tight, guitar strings about to snap. It’ll be fine. The police just doing their job, and I guess a pillow on the floor is going to be suspicious given our family history. But she must have had a little fit or something before she died and it fell out from behind her head. I can’t even remember how the pillows were when I left. I don’t remember much of it at all after she grabbed me. A blank space in my head I don’t want to think about.

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