“She left biscuits on the doorstep when we went up to the mountains,” she said. “I think she might have cooked them in my kitchen.”
“What? She broke in before and you neglected to tell me?”
“Well, I might have been wrong.” Ellen sat up and folded her arms protectively across her stomach. “I just had a feeling.” Patrick was looking at her almost as if he wanted to hit her. An image came into her mind of the way he’d grabbed Saskia by the shoulders as if he was about to throw her up against the wall.
“I’m not Saskia,” she said involuntarily.
“I know you’re not,” he said with an impatient, disgusted move of his hand. “But why did you not mention this to me?”
“I didn’t want to upset you,” said Ellen. “I know how much it upsets you.”
“You threw them out straightaway, of course.”
“Of course,” said Ellen. Honesty was often overrated.
“Because they probably had rat poison in them. Or, Christ, I don’t know, anthrax!”
“She doesn’t want to kill you, Patrick. She loves you.”
“How do you know what she wants?” said Patrick. “You have no idea what she wants. God Almighty, the woman watched us sleep last night!”
“I just talked to her at the hospital,” said Ellen. “I think it’s finished. I really do. She promised me. Anyway, she’s going to be stuck in bed for a long time.”
Patrick sat down on the chair in front of Ellen. It was the chair where her grandmother always used to sit to watch TV. Patrick looked too big and rough for it. Ellen had to stop herself from saying, Don’t sit there.
“You talked to her,” said Patrick slowly. “Why would you do that?”
“I just felt if I talked to her, I might be able to make a difference.”
“Right,” said Patrick. He ran the palm of his hand roughly across his face, pulling at the stubbled skin. “So, you two girls have a nice chat?”
“I really think she’s hit rock bottom,” began Ellen.
“Oh, dear, the poor thing,” said Patrick.
Ellen went silent. He’d earned the right to be sarcastic.
They locked eyes for a few seconds and then Patrick looked away and shook his head.
He took a deep breath. “You’re meant to be on my side.”
“I am!” said Ellen immediately.
“It feels like you’re on her side.”
“That’s—silly.”
“If you had some ex-boyfriend stalking you the way Saskia stalks me, I wouldn’t hesitate. I’d knock his head off.”
“You’re saying I should have punched Saskia?” said Ellen, unfairly, but needing all the points she could get.
“Of course not,” said Patrick tiredly. He sat back and closed his eyes.
There was a pounding sensation at the very center of Ellen’s forehead. Her wrist itched unbearably.
Guilt. That’s what she was feeling, because he was partly right. She’d tried harder to understand what it must be like to be Saskia than she’d tried to understand what it would be like to be Patrick.
The mature thing would be to say nothing, to not try to defend herself and to certainly stop aligning herself with Saskia.
Instead she said, “Are you thinking it now?”
“Thinking what?” Patrick opened his eyes.
“Are you thinking about Colleen?”
“What are you talking about? Why would I be thinking about Colleen? What has she got to do with anything?”
He looked completely, innocently baffled.
So much for her virtuous decision in the car. Part of her longed to rewind and take it back, but the other part, her basic, instinctual self, wanted everything, every single thing, out in the open.
“You said last night that sometimes you look at me and you think about Colleen, and you think that it’s not the same and that you’ll never love anyone as much as you loved Colleen.”
“I said that?” said Patrick. He paused. “I never said that!”
“You were in a hypnotic state,” admitted Ellen.
He didn’t say: I would never have said that.
“So it was like I was sleep talking,” said Patrick slowly.
“Sort of,” said Ellen. “You were somewhere between asleep and awake.”
“So when we do these hypnosis sessions, do you ask me stuff?” said Patrick. “You ask me stuff about Colleen? Is that why you do it? So you can go ferreting about in my head?”
“Of course not,” said Ellen. The phone began to ring. She wondered if she should use it as an opportunity to escape from this conversation, which did not seem to be going well. She looked down and saw that she’d been scratching at her wrist so hard that there were little flecks of blood.
“Let them leave a message,” said Patrick.
They sat there looking at each other while the phone rang and rang.
The morphine made everything melt. The ceiling softened and swirled; the white blanket covering my body rippled like water.
When I closed my eyes to get away from the melting room, I saw images from my life slapped in front of me like playing cards, one after the other, in rapid succession.
Patrick, waiting for me outside the movie theater, deep in thought, looking so sad, and then his face changing, lighting up, when he saw me arrive; my mother, when her hair was still blond, driving me home from school, looking at the road ahead and laughing over something I’d said; the kids who moved in next door, looking up at me with their trusting, nonchalant eyes; Lance from work, standing in my office, eagerly handing over The Wire DVD series.
I opened my eyes and remembered I had a job and that I should probably let them know that I wouldn’t be coming in for a while.
I called on the phone next to my bed. Nina answered, and when I heard her familiar, cheery voice I had a sensation of horror, as if I was in a dream and I’d walked into the office naked. The game was up. They were going to find out the truth.
I heard myself say, “Nina, it’s me, Saskia.”
“Oh, hey, Saskia, I didn’t know you were out this morning. Look, I’ve been wanting to ask you about—”
“Nina,” I said. It felt like I was talking underwater. I gripped the phone hard. I must have waited too long to speak because she said, “Are you still there?”