Contents ( 85)
- Contents
- Part I
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Part II
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Part III
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
- Sixty-Seven
- Sixty-Eight
- Sixty-Nine
- Seventy
- Seventy-One
- Seventy-Two
- One
- Two
- Reading Group Guide
- A Conversation with the Author
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
Twenty-Eight
October 25
It’s Sunday night and I yearn for unconsciousness.
Over a week has passed since Pearson confronted me at Tuli’s, which earned me two more sleepless nights and only a few hours a night since then. Now I’ve reached a point of such extreme anxiety and fatigue that I can barely hold a conversation, which is okay, since I don’t want to talk to anyone anyway. But Max is wondering what’s wrong with me, and all I can manage to tell him is I’m not feeling well. It didn’t take long before my mood seeped into his, causing him to act out more than normal, lashing out whenever I asked him to do anything, even just putting on his shoes.
I can’t write. I can’t hold any attention at work, struggling to make it through my shifts. I canceled dinner plans with Cora last night and have been avoiding my father as much as possible.
After dinner, I slogged through a round of Sorry! with Max on the floor of his bedroom, happy to lose. He protested when I made him go to bed by nine (Mom, it’s Sunday!), but I told him he could either read a book or go to sleep, and he chose to get under the covers with the final Harry Potter volume of the series. The world just might run out of books for him to read.
It’s nearly ten now, and my thoughts drift beyond the mere need for sleep. To the wonder of what Riley felt as he slipped off for the last time. Probably nothing at all. But maybe there was a release, sweet and pure, that gave peace to his troubled soul. Maybe in those last seconds, he became a child again, innocent and uncorrupted.
I like to think so.
In my bathroom, I dig out two pill bottles from beneath my bathroom sink. Riley had a second stash of his sleep medications in his sock drawer and I kept them. How macabre is that?
I scrutinize the labels for the first time. One bottle is labeled diazepam, which I know is Valium. The pills are tiny and the blue of a robin’s egg. The other bottle holds zolpidem—Ambien. The pills are a chalky yellow.
I take a pill from each bottle and sit on the bathroom floor, studying them. I’ve never taken any kind of medication like these before, though Riley had suggested it every now and then whenever I had trouble sleeping. But I recall what the meds did to him, making him fade into the night, slipstreaming into unconsciousness. He used to take one of each, saying the Ambien knocked him out and the Valium kept him there. I asked if the doctor said he should take them together, and Riley simply told me it was fine. That he’d done it enough times to know it was what worked for him.
Until it worked more than he expected.
I suppose everyone has these thoughts now and then. Moments when we think about how easy it would be to make all our troubles go away. A shrink would likely tell me I was normal.