People LIke Her(41)

I take the iPad and the headphones out of my bag and hand them to Coco, who settles down again to watch Octonauts. Bear’s still asleep, and when I pull out my phone I see I have several missed calls from Dan and one from Polly. I text Dan to let him know everything is fine, and Polly to say that I’ll call her later, as Coco is in the hospital. She offers to come straight over to help, to take Bear or bring dinner or a change of clothes, but I reassure her it’s just a minor sprain.

“Now, Coco,” I say, “you stay there for five minutes while Mummy finds some clothes for you that aren’t covered in mud!”

I push Bear in his buggy over to the gift shop, where I can only find a set of hideous and overpriced Peppa Pig pajamas in Coco’s size. I buy some jumbo felt-tips too, just in case she does need a cast and we can draw pictures of princesses on it.

I arrive back at Coco’s bed to find her asleep, her cheek pressed up against the iPad. A warmth fills my chest. All her big-girl attitude fades when Coco sleeps, and she’s my little baby again. And along with that rush of feeling, another thought arrives. I carefully ease the iPad out from under her, pull the curtain all the way around the bed, and draw the pale blue fleece blanket up around her chin. I stop for a second, pull out my phone, and take a photo. I hold her little hand in mine and take another. Then I hop up onto the bed beside her and take another where she’s lying curled up into a ball, spooning with me.

Obviously, I don’t plan to ever post them, but they are a useful insurance policy. I know from a whole host of other people’s Instagram scandals that distraction is always the best tactic when things go badly wrong. Say sorry for whatever the internet is accusing you of, then swiftly follow up with a personal crisis of some sort. Because who’d continue to kick a mother with a child ill in the hospital?

Dan

By the time I finally get around to checking my messages, Emmy is already at the hospital and has taken charge. “Shall I turn the Uber around and join them?” I ask. Which hospital are they at again? My driver raises his eyes to look at me in the rearview mirror. Emmy tells me not to bother, they’re nearly done, Coco has sprained her wrist very mildly and they’ll be back soon. “Just home,” I tell the driver. “The original address, yeah?”

I’m a bit surprised, when I get home, to find the door is only single-locked. I did specifically say something to Winter about that. Ever since the break-in I’ve been even more fastidious than normal when it comes to making sure the front door is double-locked, setting the alarm, leaving lights on whenever we all go out. It’s not just the thought that someone’s been in the house, it’s that someone was watching it beforehand, scoping out the neighborhood. That whoever broke in before might try the same thing again.

I go to turn the alarm off and find it’s already been deactivated.

“Hello?”

As soon as I have stepped into the hall, I can tell there is someone else in the house. I don’t know what it is. Some kind of animal sense. Something about the air pressure.

“Winter?”

No answer. In the kitchen, I hear something move.

“Emmy?”

The movement stops. I stop too. I hold my breath. I’m pretty sure I can hear a kitchen cupboard being closed—or a drawer opened.

Three quick steps, and I am in the doorway, ready to pounce on a burglar, ready to shout the place down, scared but also fueled by a certain sense of self-righteous excitement. My fists are clenched. My nails are digging into my palms.

My mother is making herself a sandwich.

She gives a bit of a start.

I unclench my face to assume a more normal expression.

“Hello, darling,” she says. “Everything okay?”

Then it hits me that I completely forgot to call my mum and tell her not to come over.

“I hope you don’t mind me making myself something to eat,” she says, taking a bite.

I say, “Of course not.” She eats it, apologizing—she came here directly from dropping Derek home from his appointment at the hospital and she hasn’t had a chance to have a thing all day.

“Id gogo nod wid du?”

I hesitate before answering.

“No, Mum, Coco isn’t with me. Don’t freak out, but she’s actually been at the hospital too.”

She swallows and puts the rest of her sandwich on the counter, pushing the plate away from her with a flick of her fingers.

“What?”

“It’s really nothing. It was silly, the person looking after her took her to the park and got distracted . . .”

Mum asks who was looking after her.

I tell her. She thoughtfully removes a bread crumb from her lower lip.

“And who is Winter?”

I explain that Winter is Emmy’s PA.

“And where was Emmy?”

“At an awards thing. And I had a lunch with my publisher.”

My mother is looking steadily less impressed.

“Which hospital did they take her to?” she asks.

I ignore this question.

“They’ve just discharged her, and she’s absolutely fine, Mum.”

I add that Coco’s on her way home now, that she’ll soon be able to confirm this for herself.

My mum being my mum, the first thing she does is beat herself up about all this—if only she could’ve been there, if only she’d canceled Derek and told him to ask someone else to drive him in for his checkup . . . She feels awful. I keep trying to reassure her this wasn’t her fault, that nothing terrible happened, that everything was fine.