Page 17 of Lover
“Which might have been too enthusiastic last night,” I confessed.
“I’m deathly afraid to ask,” Hannigan replied with such reproach on his face I felt like a schoolboy in the headmaster’s office.
“Before you assume any wrongdoing on my part”—though there was—“it’s necessary to mention I didn’t seek Millicent out. She came to me. She’s started wandering the house at night.”
“What in the blazes for?”
“She seems to be having trouble sleeping.” It was my best guess.
“Damn. I was hopeful the tea would do the trick. I despise the idea of giving her a stronger sleeping aid. She wouldn’t understand why I was offering it, and there’s no way on God’s good earth we’re slipping it to her without her consent.”
I nodded, half hearing, reluctant to divulge the next bit.
“What else, then?” Hannigan barked. “I can tell you haven’t given the complete story.”
“She claimed to see a woman roaming the halls and chased after her. That’s how she ended up in my bedroom in the middle of the night.”
Hannigan closed his eyes, shook his head.
“I’m reading between the lines here and have an educated assumption on what you’re leaving out.”
“Hannigan, she’s mywife,” I said, exasperated, still tangled in remorse for having hurt her as I’d done. “I wasn’t expecting her. She showed up in my rooms at the devil’s hour scantilydressed, and I’d admittedly been drinking. Just trying to find any way to sleep. I made a poor decision.”
“You didn’t…”
“I did nothing she didn’t seem perfectly interested in me doing. I might have leaned too heavily into the hope I could break down a wall or two if only I riled her up a bit.”
“Did it work?” he asked, his impatient tone revealing he knew the answer already and thought I was a complete idiot.
“It might have. She didn’t appear repulsed.” A feeble argument.
“You’re a handsome man, Callum. You have a magnetism. She’s likely responding naturally, as any woman might.”
“It doesn’t matter. I came to my senses and sent her away.”
“And what about her claim about the intruder?”
“I told her there was no one in the house, and we said nothing more about it.”
“She came to your room chasing a phantasm. You attempted to seduce her, changed your mind last minute, then sent her on her way with no other words of assurance?”
This allegation was unjust and rankled me considerably.
“I reacted naturally, and when I realized it was against your preposterous methods, I changed course.”
Hannigan’s voice, usually a bastion of tranquil assurance, rose. “Mymethods are backed by my colleagues who work with patients like Millie every day! Do you claim to know more than medical professionals whose life’s work is to study the broken mind?”
“I claim to know my wife more than they do!” I shot back, raising my volume to match his, anger radiating like sharp pain from an old wound never properly healed. “Hannigan, when we first met, I made the terrible mistake of treating her like a porcelain doll, so worried she might break, never giving her the opportunity to show me her strength. And now here sheis demanding a higher salary, telling me off for bad behavior, chasing an illusion she believed to be apersonthrough dark hallways as though she’d single-handedly subdue them, not to mention barging into my room and practically asking me to take her to bed! This is a woman who doesn’t need to be handled like a papier-mâché doll. We should give her an opportunity and trust she will conquer the trial the way she’s conquered all the others.”
“There are cases of amnesiac patients who come into their memories too abruptly, going into catatonic shock!”
“You said yourself those were victims of war. Millie is not a soldier.”
“You still risk her very sanity with such a suggestion.”
“Her sanity is already at risk! As is mine,” I shouted.
“Yours is not in consideration!” he roared in return.
