first came in?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Did he ever regain consciousness while in the ER?”
“No, ma’am—Oh wait, when they were wheeling him out for the CT scan. He opened his eyes then.”
“What did he do?”
“He was moving his lips, looked like he was trying to speak.”
“Did you hear what he said?” Phil asked sharply.
The nurse shrugged. “I can’t be certain. Sounded like ‘hussy.’”
CHAPTER
SIX
VICTORIA
A knife is missing. It’s four a.m., and I’ve crept out of bed to take inventory. Evan woke up at eleven, midnight, two a.m., and three. Now he will probably make it until five. At least I hope so.
I haven’t slept, but that’s nothing unusual. The first few weeks of sleep deprivation are the hardest. Now it’s been so long since I’ve had more than three consecutive hours of rest that it’s the nights I do sleep that mess me up. I find myself foggy, barely able to pull it together. It’s as if, having finally gotten sleep, my body realizes what it’s been missing and rebels.
I don’t have time for rebellions, so I’ve given myself middle-of-the-night chores. Several times a week, this includes inventory of the kitchen utensils.
He must have gotten the knife from the drying rack. I try to be diligent, but I’m rarely functioning at one hundred percent. My fine motor skills have eroded to the point that I drop small objects half a dozen times a day. When people speak to me, I have moments when I see their mouths moving, but I can’t process English.
Evan once watched a show describing how Navy SEALs must survive more than ninety-six hours without sleep as part of Hell Week. I wanted to scream at the TV, Ninety-six hours, my ass. Try eight years!
I might have started laughing hysterically. These things happen.
Now I try to marshal my limited coping skills. Assuming Evan got the knife from the drying rack, he had roughly three to five minutes alone with it before I discovered him in the kitchen. He would’ve hidden it; he’s clever that way. But somewhere close; he wouldn’t have time to make it downstairs and back, nor could he go down the hallway because I would hear him. So the knife is close, stashed somewhere in the kitchen, dining room, entryway, or family room. I should be able to find it—I just have to think.
I drag myself off the kitchen floor. The kitchen is cast in shadow, illuminated solely by the undercabinet lights. I’ve come to yearn for the dark solitude of these early-morning hours, when my son finally sleeps and I have thirty, forty, fifty precious minutes to myself.
I find a flashlight, then creep into the foyer, where I pause to listen for sounds from upstairs. I can see the glow in the upstairs hall, from Evan’s room. He demands an overhead light for nighttime, as well as a radio playing at daytime volume. He can’t stand the dark; he’s terrified of the phantom he believes lives in the gloom.
Sometimes the phantom tells him things. For example, sometimes the phantom tells him to kill me.
I love my son. I still remember the first moment I was finally allowed to hold him. I remember the endless days and nights of rocking him, feeling his greedy little lips suckle at my breast, the weight of his impossibly tiny body as he finally grew sated and drifted off. I remember the scent of talcum powder. The silky feel of his fine hair. The way he’d sigh as he nestled against me.
Evan was born ten weeks premature. I’d like to say it was just one of those things, but according to the doctor, it was all my fault.
Back in those days, Michael and I lived a marvelously shallow life. We owned a giant old Colonial in Cambridge, which we’d painstakingly remodeled to fit in with the other historic homes in the neighborhood. Michael worked long hours as a vice president with amajor finance company in Boston, while I networked with our upscale neighbors as a much-sought-after interior decorator. I designed kitchens for doctors, window treatments for
“No, ma’am.”
“Did he ever regain consciousness while in the ER?”
“No, ma’am—Oh wait, when they were wheeling him out for the CT scan. He opened his eyes then.”
“What did he do?”
“He was moving his lips, looked like he was trying to speak.”
“Did you hear what he said?” Phil asked sharply.
The nurse shrugged. “I can’t be certain. Sounded like ‘hussy.’”
CHAPTER
SIX
VICTORIA
A knife is missing. It’s four a.m., and I’ve crept out of bed to take inventory. Evan woke up at eleven, midnight, two a.m., and three. Now he will probably make it until five. At least I hope so.
I haven’t slept, but that’s nothing unusual. The first few weeks of sleep deprivation are the hardest. Now it’s been so long since I’ve had more than three consecutive hours of rest that it’s the nights I do sleep that mess me up. I find myself foggy, barely able to pull it together. It’s as if, having finally gotten sleep, my body realizes what it’s been missing and rebels.
I don’t have time for rebellions, so I’ve given myself middle-of-the-night chores. Several times a week, this includes inventory of the kitchen utensils.
He must have gotten the knife from the drying rack. I try to be diligent, but I’m rarely functioning at one hundred percent. My fine motor skills have eroded to the point that I drop small objects half a dozen times a day. When people speak to me, I have moments when I see their mouths moving, but I can’t process English.
Evan once watched a show describing how Navy SEALs must survive more than ninety-six hours without sleep as part of Hell Week. I wanted to scream at the TV, Ninety-six hours, my ass. Try eight years!
I might have started laughing hysterically. These things happen.
Now I try to marshal my limited coping skills. Assuming Evan got the knife from the drying rack, he had roughly three to five minutes alone with it before I discovered him in the kitchen. He would’ve hidden it; he’s clever that way. But somewhere close; he wouldn’t have time to make it downstairs and back, nor could he go down the hallway because I would hear him. So the knife is close, stashed somewhere in the kitchen, dining room, entryway, or family room. I should be able to find it—I just have to think.
I drag myself off the kitchen floor. The kitchen is cast in shadow, illuminated solely by the undercabinet lights. I’ve come to yearn for the dark solitude of these early-morning hours, when my son finally sleeps and I have thirty, forty, fifty precious minutes to myself.
I find a flashlight, then creep into the foyer, where I pause to listen for sounds from upstairs. I can see the glow in the upstairs hall, from Evan’s room. He demands an overhead light for nighttime, as well as a radio playing at daytime volume. He can’t stand the dark; he’s terrified of the phantom he believes lives in the gloom.
Sometimes the phantom tells him things. For example, sometimes the phantom tells him to kill me.
I love my son. I still remember the first moment I was finally allowed to hold him. I remember the endless days and nights of rocking him, feeling his greedy little lips suckle at my breast, the weight of his impossibly tiny body as he finally grew sated and drifted off. I remember the scent of talcum powder. The silky feel of his fine hair. The way he’d sigh as he nestled against me.
Evan was born ten weeks premature. I’d like to say it was just one of those things, but according to the doctor, it was all my fault.
Back in those days, Michael and I lived a marvelously shallow life. We owned a giant old Colonial in Cambridge, which we’d painstakingly remodeled to fit in with the other historic homes in the neighborhood. Michael worked long hours as a vice president with amajor finance company in Boston, while I networked with our upscale neighbors as a much-sought-after interior decorator. I designed kitchens for doctors, window treatments for
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