It was like there’d been a fire, except there was no smell of smoke. She could hear Patrick’s rattley breathing that was not quite snoring, and the hollow, rhythmic sound of waves crashing on the beach.
And she could hear or sense something else. Something not right.
There was a long, dark shape at the end of the bed. Ellen stared, her heart hammering, waiting for her eyes to adjust and for the shape to become a familiar object, like a chair or a dressing gown hanging on a door.
It moved.
Ellen’s lungs filled with air.
A woman was standing in their bedroom, at the foot of their bed, watching them sleep. Ellen scrabbled back so fast that her head banged painfully against the headboard.
Colleen. Colleen back from the dead to claim her husband.
“What is it?” said Patrick sleepily.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Then suddenly he flung back the covers and crawled straight across the bed.
“Get out!” he roared. “Get out!”
It wasn’t Colleen. It was Saskia. She was wearing pajama pants with a football jersey over the top. Her hair was wet and plastered to her head; her feet were bare.
“Patrick,” she said. She stepped back to avoid his grasp. “I just wanted—”
Patrick fell out of the bed and onto the floor in an ungainly sprawl.
Ellen saw that Saskia was holding something in her hand. It was the ultrasound pictures that they’d left on the kitchen table.
“Hey!” She’d never heard her voice sound like that before: as if it had been scraped raw. “Give those back!”
She got out of bed and moved toward Saskia. “They’re mine!”
There was a terrified shriek from down the hallway. “Daddy!”
“Jack,” said Saskia. She half turned toward the door.
Patrick got to his feet and grabbed Saskia by both arms. He lifted her up into the air as if he was going to slam her against the wall. The ultrasound photos fell from her hand onto the floor. Ellen saw that Patrick was trembling all over, his eyes wild and crazed.
He’s going to kill her, she thought. It’s my job to stop him killing her. She grabbed for the back of Patrick’s T-shirt.
“I just want to explain!” Saskia tried to drape her arms around Patrick’s neck. He shoved her away and she fell to her knees.
“Dad!” screamed Jack. “Ellen! What’s happening?”
“Get out!” Patrick dragged Saskia to her feet. “Get out now.”
“I’m sorry,” sobbed Saskia. She fell against Patrick’s chest again, and with Ellen still clutching the back of his T-shirt, they shuffled out into the hallway in a strangely intimate dance.
Dawn was breaking, and through the open door of her office opposite their bedroom, where Ellen would normally see the beach and the ocean, all she could see was a haze of apocalyptic orange. Yellow light poured into the house. She let go of Patrick’s T-shirt and stared.
What was going on? Was it war?
“Daddy! It’s Armageddon!”
Ellen turned her eyes back in time to see Patrick shove Saskia away from him just as Jack came pounding down the hallway in his pajamas, his eyes gigantic with fear.
Saskia slipped on the hallway runner and she flung out an arm to save herself.
Her flailing hand clutched at Jack’s pajama top and the two of them fell together, toppling, crashing, rolling.
Chapter 22
Careful!
—Mothers throughout the world, throughout time
For one long, endless, silent moment Ellen and Patrick stood at the top of the staircase, their hands gripped on the landing banister, their eyes fixed on Jack and Saskia below.
Saskia was on her back. One leg was bent at a sickeningly strange angle. Her head lolled; her face was obscured by her hair.
Jack was flat on his stomach, his legs straight, his palms down on the floor as if he was asleep in bed.
They’re both dead, thought Ellen with certainty, and she was seized by the terrifying revelation that this actually happened, exactly like this, all the time, every day. People died, children died, in clumsy, stupid accidents that took only a few seconds, and afterward you kept breathing, and your heart kept pumping, and everything was still exactly the same. The unacceptable happened and you were expected to accept it.
Patrick made a sound like a dog’s whimper.
Then Jack moved, and Patrick reacted instantly. He went clattering down the stairs so fast that as Ellen ran behind him she called out, “Careful!”
Jack sat up on his haunches cradling his arm. His face was dead white.
“I think I broke it,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone, and then he turned his head and was sick all over the floor.
Ellen and Patrick fell to their knees on either side of him.
“Oh, darling,” said Ellen. She lifted the sleeve of his pajamas and saw that his arm was already starting to swell and looked oddly deformed.
“You’re OK, mate,” said Patrick unconvincingly. He looked like he might faint.
Jack lifted his head and wiped his hand across his mouth. He stared at them with streaming, baffled eyes.
“What’s happened? I don’t understand. Why is Saskia here?”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Patrick. He went to reach for Jack as if to pick him up. “I’m going to take you to emergency.”
“No, you mustn’t move him,” said Ellen. “He might have a back or head injury. Just lie him down and keep that arm still. I’ll call an ambulance. Let me just check on Saskia.”
“Forget Saskia,” hissed Patrick.
“Why is she here?” said Jack again. His eyes widened as he saw her over Ellen’s shoulder. “Is she all right?”
“Just forget about her,” said Patrick.
“No!” yelled Jack. His voice was unexpectedly loud in the silent house.
Patrick blanched. “It’s all right, mate.”
Jack pulled away from him. “You can’t just forget about her! Stop saying that! Just because you don’t like her. It’s not fair!”
“Everything is OK,” said Patrick soothingly.
“Check on her!” Jack’s face went from white to bright red, his small chest heaved beneath his pajama top and his eyes glittered with fury. Ellen stared; she’d never seen a small child experiencing such grown-up emotions.
She said, “I’ll make sure she’s OK, Jack.”