You tell me of our future that you planned.
I didn’t know how I could feel such pain and still be alive.
Everyone reacted in different ways to Yara’s non-arrival. Some ghosted me – only one woman from my antenatal group got in touch. Others, people I barely knew, tried to invite themselves round, and offered tone-deaf platitudes when I stalled them.
Deliveries kept arriving at the apartment – elderflower lemonade, boxes of fancy teas, pastries, cool-crates of ice-cream. My colleagues in Hope House had a tree planted in Yara’s memory. The Real Men – a sizeable number if you added up all those on the C, D, E and F Lists – donated a hefty chunk of cash to a children’s charity.
The best people asked, ‘Can you bear to see anyone? Just say no if you can’t.’ And I always said no.
No matter how kind anyone was, the fact remained that our tragedy had plucked Luke and me from the scrum and set us down on an uninhabited island, where people could see us but never visit.
We were the ones who had taken the hit in order to spare others, as if there were only so many tragedies to go round. People were grateful to us but they were also afraid to get too close, in case the bad luck was catching.
52
Then I stopped sleeping.
The night before what would have been my due date, I was imagining everything that would have been going on, if we hadn’t been so unlucky: my waters breaking, preferably in some movie-worthy moment – perhaps on the train home from work? – my contractions starting; the mad dash to the hospital with Luke; the joyous innocence of it all. Even the pain would have been glorious! Me sweating and yelling, Luke encouraging me, the medical staff fluttering in and out doing their checks – and eventually the thrilling miracle of a new life entering the world.
All night long, my head raced with what-might-have-beens and when Luke woke in the morning, I hadn’t been to sleep, not even for half an hour.
That day, I slept for a couple of hours in the afternoon, but when night fell and Luke tumbled into bed, clumsy from too much whiskey, my head began racing again, going through it all. For a second night sleep eluded me. After trying progressive muscle relaxation and listening to a guided visualization, neither of which worked, I got up, sat on the couch, watched five episodes of The Golden Girls and would have kept watching them into infinity except Luke woke to get ready for work.
‘Babe …？ You couldn’t sleep again? Literally not a wink?’ He sat and took my face between his splayed fingers. ‘Yesterday, today – these are the worst days. Thinking about what might have been.’
‘You’re thinking about it too?’
‘Like, of course. But we’ll get through this.’
After he’d gone, I got myself up and washed and dressed – which was impressive in itself – and hit the health store, buying lavender spray, a calming blend of bath oils and sleep-inducing pressure-point plasters.
Again, in the afternoon, I fell into a deep dreamless sleep for almost three hours – and jolted awake into a world filled with loss.
In the three weeks since Yara had died, Luke had been drinking more than usual, staying up late in his shirtsleeves with his bottle of Jack Daniel’s. I didn’t blame him. I’d never minded his drinking and, even then, I didn’t want to get drunk or high, I just wanted to sleep.
Despite drenching my pillow with lavender spray, having a long bath in the scented oils and wearing the pressure-point plasters, a third almost entirely sleepless night followed. Now and again, I’d be drifting off, then I’d remember that Yara had died and, with a zap of adrenaline, I’d bump into wakefulness once more.
The next day I went to an NA meeting but a headache, like a band of copper, had tightened around my skull. A hail of platitudes rained down on me and when the speaker invited me to share, all I could manage was, ‘I can’t sleep and I really want to. I need the escape.’
As soon as the meeting ended, I was set upon and overloaded with advice. ‘Be strong, Rachel. Endure.’ Again and again I was told that sleeping tablets were okay for normal people, but not for me.
‘I know, I know,’ I mumbled, then made my escape because I had an acupuncture appointment.
I told Mr Lee, ‘Give me the most intense session possible, so that I can sleep tonight.’
With the aid of Dr Google, I’d identified the cause of my insomnia: Yara had died while I’d been asleep. While I’d been off enjoying myself in the Land of Nod I’d let my little girl die. It made perfect sense. But I couldn’t see how I could trust myself to sleep any time soon.