Emma Drake was displaying all the symptoms of grief-turned-selfish. Even without Insight, Leah likely would have figured it out.
Be fair, she told herself. If it was Archer who went out one night and never came back? And Jack or Angela or Paul got life imprisonment for it, though you knew they were innocent? Are you sure you wouldn’t instantly morph into your mother? What makes you think you wouldn’t spend the rest of your life mourning your glory days?
But thinking about what Nellie Nazir would do just made things worse. Because in about six months, her mother would be here. There’d be no more speculating about what she would do, because Leah and Archer and the world would be able to see what she would do.
What if she wants to be an actress again?
What if she does? Is that the worst possible scenario?
Yes. And what the hell are we going to name her? Nellie 2.0? Nnnellie? Nellie Squared? Nellie “I’m Back” Drake? What? Whaaaaaaat?
Which is why Leah tried not to think about it.
After further whispered updates, and an attempt by Paul to get in the bathroom,
(“C’mon, I just need the spare tape measure! It’s right there under the sink! What are you weirdos even doing in there? You’d better all be fully clothed!”)
she and Archer agreed to meet Angela and the detective at ICC tomorrow afternoon.
Later, they were treated to another fine meal by Jack, who had little to say, despite Paul’s attempt to wriggle out of doing the dishes. As it happened, Leah was in a generous mood and was happy to clean up. The Drakes had asked nothing of her in more than a week, and if their noisy squabbles and power plays sometimes made her feel invisible, she reminded herself that once upon a time, all she’d wanted was to be invisible. There were worse things than being the quiet weirdo in the crowd.
She also thought helping in the kitchen might be a way to coax Jack into telling her what was on his mind (though she had a good idea), but he didn’t linger once the table had been cleared. So: The kid was tired or he wasn’t feeling forthcoming or both. Or it has nothing to do with you, or what you think, she reminded herself, and you’re projecting.
Now it was late, close to midnight. Archer had dropped off to sleep after a bout of energetically tender lovemaking. It had started innocently enough with Archer blowing raspberries on her belly.
“Stop that.”
“She’s gotta learn the world is a cruel place full of raspberries. Pppphhhhhhbbbttt!”
“Idiot!”
“Raspberries to the right of us! Raspberries to the left of us!”
“‘Half a league, half a league onward.*’”
“What?”
“Idiot.”
Then he went lower. And stayed there for a while.
A few minutes later, she was reminded that Archer might not be up on his nineteenth-century British poetry, but he was an expert in how to make her gasp and shake and want him. Pregnancy hadn’t dampened their sex drive, though she wondered if that would be true five months from now.
She’d cleaned up, then came back to a snoring Archer; he’d dropped off before she could offer him a washcloth. Normally Leah would have followed suit, but too much had happened in too short a time. She’d start thinking about Dennis and the tombstone and then would wonder about Jack. Then she’d think about Angela, who, for all her controlling ways, was quite pleasant and to be commended, partly for her own talents but also for being the head of the family since she was a child. Then she’d start wondering if there was any juice left and what it would taste like with a tablespoon of mustard stirred in.
The cravings. They sicken me even as they delight me.
Enough. One thing she knew about insomnia: Making yourself stay in bed when you couldn’t sleep was not a good plan. All you did was lie there and think about the time. I have to get up in six hours. In four hours. In two. In ninety minutes. So she slipped into Archer’s robe and padded out of their room, kitchen-bound. For orange juice and what might be even better: If her suspicions were correct, she could finally be of some real help to this nutty, exhausting band of charmers.
That was worth some lost z’s.
THIRTY-TWO
She found Jack, as she’d hoped she would, sorting through what looked like hundreds of cookbooks. She found that equal parts commendable and exasperating. How many books about pudding does any one family need?
He turned his head—his back was to the kitchen doorway—and nodded. “Hey.”
“Hello, Jack. Please don’t leap to your feet and prepare me a nutritionally sound prenatal snack. I’m just here for the orange juice.” Which was one of the silliest things to drink when you wanted to sleep—hospitals kept it on hand because it got a patient’s blood sugar up in a hurry—but oh, well.
“Wasn’t gonna,” he muttered.
“Oh. Then this just got awkward.”
A muffled snort. She stepped to the fridge, got the juice, ignored the mustard (the poor boy was going through enough without having to witness that horror show), poured herself a glass, sipped, set it down, went to him, touched his shoulder. After a moment, he looked up at her. He was sitting cross-legged in front of the jam-packed bookshelf, and it might have been the overhead lighting, but he looked haunted. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
She smiled. God, the bags under his eyes. “That’s my line, Jack. Can I help you? Will you tell me?”
“I’m okay.”
“Bullshit. Which I say with deepest respect as a guest in your kitchen.”
He blinked up at her. “I’m okay. You’re the one who should go and sleep, you’re making another person.”
“I can do more than one thing at once. Well, sometimes. I’m sorry to pester, and I know we only just met, but I’d like to help you.”
“I’m o-kay.”
Sure you are. “If I can guess what’s bothering you, will you confirm?”
A shrug. But this time, he didn’t immediately go back to pretending to read a cookbook.
She sat on the floor beside him. “It’s not that you can’t sleep. It’s that you’re afraid to sleep.”
Silence.
“You don’t want to sleep because you’re having bloody, violent, terrifying dreams. So being awake is good, right? But it’s a problematic long-term solution.”
“Everybody has nightmares.”
She nodded. “Oh, yes. And lots of people fight them the way you are—by trying to avoid them. Or they go the other way, self-medicating with Ambien or alcohol so they go down deep and don’t dream.”
“I can’t do that, though.” He immediately went red, like he knew he’d showed his hand and was now resigned to her taking advantage.
“That’s right, you can’t. And you’re clever to know it. Access, for one thing, is a problem. You’re the youngest in a house full of people who’d bust you in a cold minute, that’s another one. So you’re stuck with coffee, which is why you’ve slipped caffeine into every dessert for the last three days.”
“Everybody likes triple coffee cheesecake. And mocha brownies with coffee frosting. And coffee meringues. And coffee cinnamon rolls. And—”
“Sure, Jack. Please don’t misunderstand; I’m not criticizing you. I think you’re to be commended.” She nudged him gently with her elbow. “You had me buying you more coffee—you got me to feed your habit right under my nose, that’s how long it took me to catch on. You made me your dealer, dammit!”
“Kinda,” he mumbled. “But I usually made two batches of desserts, so I’ve actually been feeding you decaf.”
“Huh. Well. That’s something to be proud of, you duplicitous jerk.”
He giggled, but immediately sobered. “I wasn’t trying to trick you.”
“You literally just explained how you tricked me. And how you tricked anyone who had one of ‘my’ desserts and thought they were getting caffeine.”
He shrugged. “I just needed it.”
“I know. But it’s just another stopgap measure. It’s not a long-term fix. And other problems are cropping up, too, aren’t they? Because the more exhausted you are, the more the world seems bigger and louder. Things that didn’t bother you before are bugging the hell out of you now.”