He turned and held up a hand in farewell before stepping through the door. When he was out of sight, Lauren’s smile soured and her finger-wave curled into a fist. She knew he wouldn’t leave the building immediately; first he would slink into the consultation room and pour poison into her Observation Log. The therapeutic regime at the Selver required each visitor to add comments to the log after a visit, under headings that were supposed to function as guides or prompts, but which Lauren thought encouraged exaggeration and misinterpretation. At least, they did in Patrick. Headings included: Comments by the Patient Indicating Continued Unwanted or Inappropriate Thoughts; Behaviours Deemed to be Out of Character; Signs of Anxiety or Withholding of True Feelings. She’d seen what he’d put in there, describing her perfectly reasonable responses as emotional outbursts, or her unguarded comments as proof that she was deluded. When she’d first read the Observation Log, two things had occurred to Lauren: firstly, her husband was a traitor and couldn’t be trusted; secondly, for him to diligently record such flagrant half-truths, he must have had hidden reasons of his own for wanting to keep her locked up.

One recent entry read:

Lauren is still referring to her paranoid delusions as if they were real. She’s very emotional. I wouldn’t trust her alone with the babies. Perhaps look at extra medication?

Aware of the psychiatrist’s scrutiny while she read, she’d kept her face neutral as her inner monologue let go a stream of swears.

“What are you thinking?” the doctor had said.

I’m thinking, my husband is a liar and a bastard.

She said, with deliberate mildness, “I don’t like it. But I suppose I think he has a point.”

The doctor smiled and noted something down. Baby steps, she thought.

*   *   *

When all the visitors had checked out of the ward, the patients were escorted back to their glass-walled rooms. Lauren sat on the bed, holding the Twin Tales book in her hands. After a while she let it fall open at the beginning of the story that she had turned to so many times, and began to read, her eyes skimming quickly along the words she knew so well. Although it had frightened her when Cindy had first read it to her, now the story was a comfort. She’d done what was required, and her boys were back in the world, where they belonged, even if they weren’t yet with her because she was stuck in here, for now. It was the ending she needed to see, to be reassured, to make sure it was exactly as she remembered.

A Brewery of Eggshells (Traditional, Peak District, England)