The Love of My Life(84)
‘This is going to be hard,’ is all he says. He looks at Jeremy, who has sunk back into the sofa, lost in thought.
When I don’t take the diary, Charlie puts it on my lap.
I pick it up.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
DIARY OF JANICE ROTHSCHILD
Six months ago
Eighteen years exactly since we formally adopted Charlie.
Guilt no easier. Fear no easier. Periods lying awake at night getting longer. Averaging 3.5 hours’ sleep. Feel almost hallucinatory I’m so tired.
Problem is, I don’t think sleep’s going to come. BC what keeps me awake at night is the effort of trying to convince myself that Emily really was trying to suffocate Charlie.
I was certain once. When I walked into her room and saw the pillow over C’s face, I was certain. They questioned me; still certain. Drove home, certain. Told J – certain. Didn’t cross my mind I could have got it wrong.
When did the certainty begin to falter? Was there a moment when I began to question what I saw? If there was, I don’t remember it. All I know is that I stuck to my script and didn’t allow myself to think any further.
Until a few months ago. Her TV series was repeated; I was just flicking through the channels and there she was, marching along a cliff path, banging on about Cornish choughs.
Felt absolute dread, looking at her face on the screen. A turning point. I just stopped pretending. To myself, I mean. I just stopped lying.
She wasn’t going to smother him. She was too well by then – she was playing peekaboo. I heard her saying it as I came up the corridor. I started to smile because I knew it was her and Charlie.
But then there she was with a pillow over his face, and I panicked. Was awful. Deeply traumatic; I had nightmares about it for months after.
If I’d stayed there for a second longer, tho, she’d have whipped that pillow away and said, PEEKABOO!
And then Charlie wouldn’t have been my baby.
Don’t know where this is leading. Am I ready to come clean? Career would be over. Marriage would be over. Might actually end up in prison? Not sure? Probably not. But suspect Emily could sue me. I would, in her shoes.
Above all, would harm Charlie, probably force him to cut me out of his life, and then what would be the point in living?
And why ruin everything? Emily completely believed it, and still does. She so fundamentally doubted herself at that time, she took what I said as gospel – I read her statements. I got her text messages, begging me to adopt Charlie because she didn’t trust herself.
Emily’s life has been fucked ever since, tho, and the part of me that’s frozen over with horror at what I’ve done gets bigger every day.
Have interview with Evening Standard later about the power of female friendship. A fucking irony.
Might see if I can privately get some antidepressants or maybe anti-anxiety stuff.
So much rage and hopelessness. Eighteen years, and it hasn’t got any easier, any better. I am still a monster.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
EMMA
I look up at Charlie, who’s watching me, face blank. Outside in the dark garden, John is barking at the tree, which he likes to do when the wind blows it back and forth.
A hot hollow has expanded in my chest.
‘Is there more?’ I ask.
‘Yes and no. She doesn’t say anything as open as that again. Basically, this is the bit you need to read.’
‘And you believe it?’ My voice is stretched nearly to breaking. ‘You think it’s the truth?’
‘I know it is. I confronted her.’
I stare at him. ‘You mean, she admitted it?’
Charlie swallows, then nods.
I slump back into the sofa. I wish I could be closer to Leo, to cling on to him before I get swept away, but he’s sitting at the other end of the sofa, and I have no idea if he’ll ever hold my hand again.
Jeremy looks destroyed.
‘Dad had no idea,’ Charlie says, following my gaze.
I want to believe what I have just read.
I do not want to believe what I’ve just read.
Charlie leans back in our armchair. ‘I started university last September. When I came home for the Christmas holidays Mum wasn’t herself at all. Very up and down, weirdly angry. Dad said she’d been that way since I’d left for Boston.’
John comes and scrabbles at the back door, which stops Charlie in his flow. Leo gets up and lets the dog in.
‘When I came back for the Easter holidays she was even worse. Sort of ultra-needy, but also just – I dunno – just furious. Not just with us, necessarily, just generally.’ He scratches his head. ‘It was a dick move, but one night she left her diary by the loo in her en suite and I picked it up. Mum’s written diaries my whole life and I’ve always respected her privacy, but – well, fuck it, I was worried.’
Charlie pauses. ‘Sorry. Mum and Dad don’t mind me swearing. Do you?’
‘Of course not.’
‘So I read a few pages. She sounded quite unstable. And I was about to put it back when I read something I didn’t like. Essentially a reference to all of the stuff you’ve just read.’
He expels a long breath.
‘I read it four or five times, but I couldn’t see what else she could mean. It was about the smothering thing. It sounded like she’d made it up, but I couldn’t quite believe it. I went back to Boston for my summer term, but I kept thinking about it. I suppose I was just hoping I’d misunderstood.’