The Girl Before

My employers were just as helpful after I told them about the stillbirth, offering me unlimited sick leave; they’d already arranged maternity cover, after all. I found myself sitting alone in a flat that had been carefully prepared for a child: the Kuster crib, the top-of-the-range Bugaboo, the hand-painted circus frieze around the spare bedroom wall. I spent the first month expressing breast milk that I poured down the sink.

Bureaucracy tried to be kind but, inevitably, wasn’t. I discovered that the law makes no special provision for a stillbirth: A woman in my position is required to go and register the death, and the birth, simultaneously, a legal cruelty that still makes me angry whenever I think about it. There was a funeral—again, a legal requirement, though I would have wanted one anyway. It’s hard to give a eulogy for a life that didn’t happen, but we tried.

Counseling was offered, and accepted, but in my heart I knew it wouldn’t make any difference. There was a mountain of grief to be climbed, and no amount of talk would help me up it. I needed to work. When it became clear I actually couldn’t go back to my old job for another year—you can’t just get rid of someone who’s doing maternity cover, apparently; they have rights just like any other employee—I resigned and started working part-time for a charity that campaigns to improve research about stillbirths. It meant I couldn’t afford to go on living where I was, but I would have moved anyway. I could get rid of the crib and the nursery wallpaper, but it would still always be the home where Isabel isn’t.

THEN: EMMA

Something’s woken me up.

I know right away it isn’t drunks outside the kebab shop or a fight in the street or a police helicopter overhead because I’m so used to those, they barely register. I lift my head and listen. A thud, then another.

Someone’s moving around in our flat.

There’ve been a few break-ins recently around here, and for a moment I feel my stomach knot with adrenaline. Then I remember. Simon’s been out, some work pub crawl or other, and I went to bed without waiting up. The sounds suggest he’s had too much to drink. I hope he’ll have a shower before he comes to bed.

I can tell roughly how late it is by the street noise, or rather the lack of it. No growl of engines accelerating away from the traffic lights. No car doors slamming around the kebab shop. I find my phone and peer at the clock. I don’t have my lenses in, but I can see it says 2:41.

Si comes along the corridor, drunk enough not to remember that the floor by the bathroom always creaks.

It’s okay, I call out. I’m awake.

His footsteps pause outside the door. To show I’m not angry I add, I know you’re drunk.

Voices, indistinct. Whispering.

Which means he’s brought someone home. Some drunk colleague who didn’t make the last train back to the suburbs. That’s annoying, actually. I have a busy day tomorrow—today, now—and providing breakfast for Simon’s hung-over co-workers isn’t part of the plan. Although when it actually comes to it, I know Simon will be charming and funny and call me babe and beautiful and tell his friend how I almost became a model and isn’t he the luckiest man in the world and I’ll give in and just be late for work. Again.

I’ll see you later then, I call out, a bit peeved. They’ll probably get the Xbox out.

But the footsteps don’t move away.

Annoyed now, I swing my legs out of bed—I’m decent enough for a colleague, just, in an old T-shirt and boxers—and pull open the bedroom door.

But I’m not as quick as the figure on the other side, the one in the dark clothing and the balaclava who pushes his shoulder against it, hard and sudden, knocking me backward. I scream—at least, I think I do: It might just be a gasp, fear and shock paralyzing my throat. The kitchen light’s on, and I see the flash as he raises the knife. A small knife, such a small one, hardly bigger than a pen.

His eyes stand out against the dark wool of the balaclava. They widen as he takes in the sight of me.

Whoa! he says.

Behind him I see another balaclava, another set of eyes, more anxious this time.

Leave it, bruv, the second one says. One of the intruders is white, one black, but both are talking the same street slang.

Chill, the first one says. Sick, innit.

He raises the knife farther, until it’s directly in front of my face.

Gimme your phone, you stuck-up bitch.

I freeze.

But then I’m too quick for him. I reach behind me. He thinks I’m getting my phone but actually I’m grabbing my own knife, the big meat knife from the kitchen that’s on the bedside table. The handle comes into my hand, smooth and heavy, and in one fluid movement I bring it around so that it slides into the bastard’s belly, just below the ribs. It goes in easily. No blood, I think as I pull it out and stab him again. There’s no spurt of blood like there is in horror movies. That makes it easier. I punch the knife through his arm, then his abdomen, then lower still, somewhere around his balls, twisting it savagely into his groin. As he crumples to the ground I step over his body to the second figure.

You too, I tell him. You were there, you didn’t stop him. You little prick. I jam the knife into his mouth, as easy as mailing a letter.

And then everything goes blank, and I wake up screaming.