Steven Watson - Before I Go to Sleep

“Where’s your mummy?” I said. He shrugged. “Your daddy?”

“Dunno,” he said. “Mummy says Daddy’s gone. She says he doesn’t love us no more.”

I looked at him. He had said it with no sense of pain, or disappointment. For him it was a simple statement of fact. For a moment the carousel felt perfectly still, the world spinning around the two of us rather than us within it.

“I bet your mummy loves you, though?” I said.

He was silent for a few seconds. “Sometimes,” he said.

“But sometimes she doesn’t?”

He paused. “I don’t think so.” I felt a thudding in my chest, as if something was turning over. Or waking. “She says not. Sometimes.”

“That’s a shame,” I said. I watched the bench I had been sitting on come toward us, then recede. We spun, again and again.

“What’s your name?”

“Alfie,” he said. We were slowing down, the world coming to a halt behind his head. My feet connected with the ground and I kicked off, spinning us again. I said his name, as if to myself. Alfie.

“Mummy says sometimes she’d be better off if I lived somewhere else,” he said.

I tried to keep smiling, my voice cheery. “I bet she’s joking though?”

He shrugged.

My whole body tensed. I saw myself asking him if he would like to come with me. Home. To live. I imagined how his face would brighten, even as he said he wasn’t supposed to go anywhere with strangers. But I’m not a stranger, I would say. I would lift him up—he would be heavy and smell sweet, like chocolate—and together we would go into the café. What juice do you want? I would say, and he would ask for apple. I would buy him a drink, and some candy, too, and we would leave the park. He would be holding my hand as we walked back home, back to the house I shared with my husband, and that night I would cut his meat for him and mash his potatoes, and then, once he was in his pajamas, I would read him a story before tucking the covers under his sleeping body and kissing him softly on the top of his head. And tomorrow—

Tomorrow? I have no tomorrow, I thought. Just as I had no yesterday.

“Mummy!” he called out. For a moment, I thought he was talking to me, but he leaped off the carousel and ran toward the café.

“Alfie!” I called out, but then I saw a woman walking over, clutching a plastic cup in each hand.

She crouched down as he reached her. “Y’all right, Tiger?” she said as he ran into her arms, and she looked up, past him, at me. Her eyes were narrowed, her face set hard. I’ve done nothing wrong! I wanted to shout. Leave me alone!

But I didn’t. Instead I looked the other way and then, once she had led Alfie away, I got off the carousel. The sky was darkening now, turning to an inky blue. I sat on a bench. I didn’t know what time it was, or how long I’d been out. I knew only that I couldn’t go home, not yet. I couldn’t face Ben. I couldn’t face having to pretend I knew nothing about Adam, that I had no idea I’d had a child. For a moment, I wanted to tell him everything. About my journal, Dr. Nash. Everything. But I pushed the thought from my mind. I did not want to go home, but had nowhere else to go.

I stood and began to walk as the sky turned black.

The house was in darkness. I did not know what to expect when I pushed open the front door. Ben would be missing me; he had said he would be home by five. I pictured him pacing up and down the living room—for some reason, even though I had not seen him smoke this morning, my imagination added a lit cigarette to this scene—or maybe he was out, driving the streets, looking for me. I imagined teams of police and volunteers out there, going from door to door with a photocopied picture of me, and felt guilty. I tried to tell myself that, even though I had no memory, I was not a child, I was not a missing person, not yet, but still I went into the house ready to make an apology.

I called out. “Ben?” There was no answer, but I felt, rather than heard, movement. A creak of a floorboard, somewhere above me, an almost imperceptible shift in the equilibrium of the house. I called out, again, louder this time. “Ben?”

“Christine?” came a voice. It sounded weak, cracked open.

“Ben,” I said. “Ben, it’s me. I’m here.”

He appeared above me, standing at the top of the stairs. He looked as though he’d been sleeping. He was still wearing the clothes he’d put on that morning to go to work, but now his shirt was creased and hung loose from his trousers, and his hair stood out in all directions, emphasizing his look of shock with an almost comical hint of electricity. A memory floated through me—science lessons and Van de Graaff generators—but did not emerge.

He started to come down the stairs. “Chris, you’re home!”

“I… I had to get some air,” I said.

“Thank God,” he said. He came over to where I stood and took my hand. He gripped it, as if to shake it, or to make sure it was real, but did not move it. “Thank God!”

He looked at me, his eyes wide, glowing. They glistened in the dim light as though he’d been crying. How much he loves me, I thought. My feeling of guilt intensified.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to—”

He interrupted me. “Oh, let’s not worry about that, shall we?”

He brought my hand to his lips. His expression changed, became one of pleasure, of happiness. All traces of anxiety disappeared. He kissed me.

“But—”

“You’re back, now. That’s the main thing.” He flicked on the light and then smoothed his hair into a semblance of order. “Right!” he said, tucking in his shirt. “What say you go and freshen up? And then I thought we could go out? What do you think?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I—”

“Oh, Christine. We should! You look like you need cheering up!”

“But, Ben, I don’t feel like it.”

“Please?” he said. He took my hand again, squeezing it gently. “It would mean a lot to me.” He took my other hand and brought them both together, between his. “I don’t know if I told you this morning. It’s my birthday today.”

What could I do? I did not want to go out. But then, I did not want to do anything. I told him I would do as he asked, would freshen up, and then see how I felt. I went upstairs. His mood had disturbed me. He had seemed so concerned, but, as soon as I appeared safe and well, that concern evaporated. Did he really love me so much? Trust me so much that all he cared about was that I was safe, not where I had been?

I went into the bathroom. Perhaps he hadn’t seen the photos scattered all over the floor, genuinely believed I had been out for a walk. There was still time for me to cover my tracks. To hide my anger and my grief.

I locked the door behind me. I pulled the cord and turned on the light. The floor had been swept clean. There, arranged around the mirror as if they had never been moved, were the photographs, every one perfectly restored.

I told Ben I would be ready in half an hour. I sat in the bedroom and, as quickly as I could, wrote this.

I do not know what happened after that. What did I do after Ben told me that it was his birthday? After I went upstairs and discovered the photographs, replaced just as they had been before I ripped them down? I don’t know. Perhaps I showered and got changed, maybe we went out, for a meal, to the movies. I cannot say. I did not write it down and do not remember, despite it being only a few hours ago. Unless I ask Ben, it is lost completely. I feel like I am going mad.

This morning, in the early hours, I woke with him lying next to me. A stranger, again. The room was dark, silent. I lay, rigid with fear, not knowing who, or where, I was. I could think only of running, of escape, but could not move. My mind felt scooped out, hollow, but then words floated to the surface. Ben. Husband. Memory. Accident. Death. Son.