“Is she gonna be all right? How? What the fuck did she do? Where were the kids?”
I finally looked up and met his gaze. His mouth was drawn down into a frown, and he looked as if he was in pain. Did I look worse? I must have looked like I was in absolute agony, because he reached for me, and I broke down.
“Its okay, Del, its okay.”
He released his hold, and we both dried our eyes.
“She got Taylor to babysit, checked into a hotel, and washed down a packet of sleeping tablets with a bottle of wine.
“Jesus. Fuck,” he said through the hand that was coving his mouth. He raked it through his hair and then shook his head and deepened his frown.
“Where’d she get the sleeping tablets? I offered her some the other night, she never said she already had some.”
“Fuck if I know. I’ve never seen them. I’ve never known her to take them.”
The door opened and a doctor walked in. It was a woman with long, straight red hair parted in the middle.
“Mr Delaney?” She held out her hand and looked between me and Luke. I held out mine and moved to stand. “No, please. Sit down. This must’ve of all been an awful shock for you.”
I sat and nodded my head.
“This is Luke Carter, Sarah’s brother.”
“Luke, hi. I’m Molly Dalglish, and I’ve been looking after Sarah.” She looked between us for a few seconds, and I swore my heart stopped beating the entire time.
“Okay, so we’ve got Sarah stabilised. Preliminary blood test results show that she took somewhere between eight and ten tablets. We’ve administered a reverse anaesthetic and that’s brought her around somewhat. Her BP is okay and everything else looks good. She’ll probably remain asleep for the next few hours, during which time we’ll keep monitoring her. She will probably be a little groggy for some time after that.”
She drew in a deep breath before asking, “Any questions?”
“Is she gonna be all right? Long term I mean. Are there gonna be lasting side effects?”
“I’d like to give you a definite no, but until she’s fully conscious, I can’t do that. Early indicators are, physically at least, that she’s gonna be fine.”
“Can I ask?” Luke interrupted. “The tablets she took, are they the same as Ambien?”
She nodded. “They were Ambien, from what we could tell from the packaging, made and distributed in the States.”
Luke turned to me. “They’re mine. She must’ve gone to my place and taken them.”
“You know how many were in there?” The doctor asked him.
“Only about six or seven I think. I can’t actually be sure, though.”
“Excellent. That’s even better. Obviously, the fact that she mixed them with alcohol didn’t help, and because we weren’t absolutely sure what we were dealing with, we administered a charcoal solution and pumped her stomach as soon as she arrived at the hospital.”
She had gone to Luke’s and taken the tablets. Did she know she was gonna do this? Planned it? And then something struck me.
“She kissed me goodbye.”
“Excuse me?”
“Last night. Before we went to sleep. She kissed me, but instead of saying good night, she said goodbye.”
“I told her about the tablets last night,” Luke stated.
I dragged both my hands down my face and shook my head.
“I don’t understand. I don’t fucking get it at all. Why? Why the fuck would she do this? Surely this can’t all be over what happened with the dog?”
“Sarah will receive a full psychiatric assessment tomorrow, but would you have any idea right now why she would’ve done something like this. What happened with the dog?”
I shook my head.
“There was an accident last night. The dog escaped from the house just as Sarah was pulling onto the drive, and he was hit. He didn’t make it.”
“Well, that might’ve just been a tipping point. Anything else?”
“She has seemed a little bit down in the past, but what I’ve seen of her lately, she’s been a bit brighter.”
I stared at Luke for a bit. “You think she’s been down in the past?”
“Yeah, I do. After the twins were born and then after Lucas was born especially.”
I pulled on the lobe of my ear and thought about this. Being a bit down was not the same as being suicidal.
“She’s always tired, but we have four kids. I just . . .” I let air puff out loudly from my lips. “I just thought that was how it was when you were running around after four kids all day.”
“How old are the children.”
“Eight in May, the twins are four and the baby two.”
She nodded her head. “A lot of hard work then.”
“Yeah, but she copes. Sarah’s a great mum.”
“Any history of depression in the family?”
“Yeah.” Luke jumped straight in. “Our mum, I don’t know if she was ever officially diagnosed, but I’m sure she was a manic depressive.”
“Was?”
“She died when Sarah was three. Car accident. We were raised by our grandparents.”
“Okay. I’m thinking there may have been some depression going on for a while, but I’ll let our team talk to her tomorrow, and we’ll work out a plan of action going forward based on what they say.”