Steven Watson - Before I Go to Sleep

I thought of what I had read this morning. Of the divorce. “But he left me. To be with her.”

“Christine,” he said. “You’re not thinking. If that was true, why would he bring you back? Back here? He would have just left you in Waring House. But he hasn’t. He looks after you. Every day.”

I felt myself collapse, folding in on myself. I felt as if I understood his words, yet at the same time didn’t. I felt the warmth his body gave off, saw the kindness in his eyes. He smiled as I looked at him. He seemed to become bigger, until his body was all I could see, his breathing all I could hear. He spoke, but I did not hear what he said. I heard only one word. Love.

I didn’t intend to do what I did. I didn’t plan it. It happened suddenly, my life shifting like a stuck lid that finally gives. In a moment, all I could feel were my lips on his, my arms around his neck. His hair was damp and I neither understood nor cared why. I wanted to speak, to tell him what I felt, but I did not, because to do so would have been to stop kissing him, to end the moment that I wanted to go on forever. I felt like a woman, finally. In control. Though I must have done so, I can remember—have written about—no other time when I have kissed anyone but my husband; it might as well have been the first.

I don’t know for how long it lasted. I don’t even know how it happened, how I went from sitting there, on the sofa next to him, diminished, so small that I felt I might disappear, to kissing him. I don’t remember willing it, which is not to say I don’t remember wanting it. I don’t remember it beginning. I remember only that I went from one state to another, with nothing in between, with no opportunity for conscious thought, no decision.

He did not push me away roughly. He was gentle. He gave me that, at least. He did not insult me by asking me what I was doing, much less what I thought I was doing. He simply removed first his lips from mine, then my hands from where they had come to rest on his shoulders, and, softly, said, “No.”

I was stunned. At what I had done? Or his reaction to it? I cannot say. It felt only that, for a moment, I had been somewhere else and a new Christine had stepped in, taken me over completely, and then vanished. I was not horrified, though. Not even disappointed. I was glad. Glad that, because of her, something had happened.

He looked at me. “I’m sorry,” he said, and I could not tell what he felt. Anger? Pity? Regret? Any of those things might be possible. Perhaps the expression I saw was a mixture of all three. He was still holding my hands and he put them back in my lap, then let them go. “I’m sorry, Christine,” he said again.

I did not know what to say. What to do. I was silent, about to apologize myself, and then I said, “Ed. I love you.”

He closed his eyes. “Christine,” he began, “I—”

“Please,” I said. “Don’t. Don’t tell me you haven’t felt it too.” He frowned. “You know you love me.”

“Christine,” he said. “Please, you’re… you’re…”

“What?” I said. “Crazy?”

“No. Confused. You’re confused.”

I laughed. “ ‘Confused’?”

“Yes,” he said. “You don’t love me. You remember we talked about confabulation? It’s quite common with people who—”

“Oh,” I said. “I know. I remember. With people who have no memory. Is that what you think this is?”

“It’s possible. Perfectly possible.”

I hated him then. He thought he knew everything, knew me better than I did myself. All he really knew was my condition.

“I’m not stupid,” I said.

“I know. I know that, Christine. I don’t think you are. I just think—”

“You must love me.”

He sighed. I was frustrating him now. Wearing his patience thin.

“Why else have you been coming here so much? Driving me around London. Do you do that with all your patients?”

“Yes,” he began, then, “well, no. Not exactly.”

“Then why?”

“I’ve been trying to help you,” he said.

“Is that all?”

A pause, then he said, “Well, no. I’ve been writing a paper, too. A scientific paper—”

“Studying me?”

“Well, sort of,” he said. I tried to push what he was saying from my mind.

“But you didn’t tell me that Ben and I were separated,” I said. “Why? Why didn’t you do that?”

“I didn’t know!” he said. “No other reason. It wasn’t in your file and Ben didn’t tell me. I didn’t know!” I was silent. He moved, as if to take my hands again, then stopped, scratching his forehead instead. “I would have told you. If I’d known.”

“Would you?” I said. “Like you told me about Adam?”

He looked hurt. “Christine, please.”

“Why did you keep him from me?” I said. “You’re as bad as Ben!”

“Jesus, Christine,” he said. “We’ve been through this. I did what I thought was best. Ben wasn’t telling you about Adam. I couldn’t tell you. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t have been ethical.”

I laughed. A hollow, snorting laugh. “Ethical? What is ethical about keeping him from me?”

“It was down to Ben to decide whether to tell you about Adam. Not me. I suggested you keep a journal, though. So that you could write down what you’d learned. I thought that was for the best.”

“How about the attack, then? You were quite happy for me to go along thinking I’d been involved in a hit-and-run accident!”

“Christine, no. No, I wasn’t. Ben told you that. I didn’t know that’s what he was saying to you. How could I?”

I thought of what I had seen. Orange blossom–scented baths and hands around my throat. The feeling that I could not breathe. The man whose face remained a mystery. I began to cry. “Then why did you tell me at all?” I said.

He spoke kindly but still did not touch me. “I didn’t,” he said. “I didn’t tell you that you were attacked. That, you remembered yourself.” He was right, of course. I felt angry. “Christine, I—”

“I want you to leave,” I said. “Please.” I was crying solidly now, yet felt curiously alive. I did not know what had just happened, could barely even remember what had been said, but it felt as if some awful thing had lifted, some dam within me finally burst.

“Please,” I said. “Please go.”

I expected him to argue. To beg me to let him stay. I almost wanted him to. But he did not. “If you’re sure?” he said.

“Yes,” I whispered. I turned toward the window, determined to not look at him again. Not today, which for me will mean that by tomorrow I might as well have never seen him at all. He stood up, walked to the door.

“I’ll call you,” he said. “Tomorrow? Your treatment. I—”

“Just go,” I said. “Please.”

He said nothing else. I heard the door close behind him.

I sat there for a while. A few minutes? Hours? I don’t know. My heart raced. I felt empty and alone. Eventually I went upstairs. In the bathroom, I looked at the photos. My husband. Ben. What have I done? I have nothing, now. No one I can trust. No one I can turn to. My mind raced, out of control. I kept thinking of what Dr. Nash had said. He loves you. He’s trying to protect you.

Protect me from what, though? From the truth. I thought the truth more important than anything. Maybe I am wrong.

I went into the study. Ben has lied about so much. There is nothing he has told me I can believe. Nothing at all.

I knew what I had to do. I had to know. Know that I could trust him, about this one thing.

The box was where I had described it, locked, as I suspected. I did not get upset.

I began to look. I told myself I would not stop until I found the key. I searched the office first. The other drawers, the desk. I did it methodically. I replaced everything where I had found it, and when I had finished, I went into the bedroom. I looked in the drawers, digging beneath his underwear, the handkerchiefs, neatly ironed, the undershirts and T-shirts. Nothing, and nothing in the drawers I used, either.