Chapter Thirty-Three

Six weeks later

Postpartum psychosis. The words still feel thick and unfamiliar on my tongue as I wait for Rav to bring the car round. I am finally leaving the secure psychiatric unit at Maidstone and going home to the children, six weeks after they brought me here. My heart rate increases when I think of Mina and Leo. I haven’t seen them since that day, the day Rav came home to find me standing over Mina with a pillow in my hands, the gas blazing away merrily downstairs. Thank God he came back when he did. Thank God he stopped me.

It wasn’t a dream. I blink back tears, smiling at a woman who comes out of the automatic double doors, a cigarette already halfway to her mouth before she is completely outside. I don’t want to be seen crying out here, I don’t want them to think that I’m not ready to go home. The woman lights the cigarette, a look of bliss on her face as she breathes out a plume of smoke. She reminds me of my mother, and I step away from her and the grey wreathes of smoke around her, towards the kerb as Rav brings the car to a stop.

‘Ready?’ His face is still creased with worry lines and there is a smattering of grey at his temples now which was never there before.

‘Ready,’ I say, trying not to let my nerves betray me. I slide into the passenger seat, the two car seats in the back catching my eye. I wonder how Mina will respond when I get home after six weeks without me. Will she be shy? Or will she throw her arms around me the way she does to Avó when she visits? The baby won’t even know I’ve been gone, I tell myself, even though Rav keeps telling me Leo misses me.

As if he has read my mind Rav says, ‘Avó will be there when we get home, will that be OK? I had to get her to watch the children.’

‘Of course.’ I smile, wishing Rav would put the radio on. Anything to break this awkward silence that fills the car every time Rav stops talking. ‘Have you seen Naomi?’

‘Yes.’ Rav keeps his eyes on the road but stretches out a hand to squeeze my knee. ‘She’s had to move back in with her mum. I think she’ll be there til the end now, until her mother passes.’