“Okay,” I began again, gathering myself. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
I started again. “No one’s found her body. Someone did find part of her nightshirt beside the Gale River. At least once before she walked to the bridge. So, let’s say that the worst thing that could have happened did happen—what a lot of people believe. She walked into the river that night near where they found the scrap of nightshirt. Why didn’t she wake up when her feet hit the water? Can you be in that deep a sleep when you’re sleepwalking?”
“Maybe she did.”
“Wake up.”
“Yes.”
“And it was too late? She was already drowning?”
“Could be.”
“Have you ever had a patient die while sleepwalking before now?”
“No. Thank God.”
“So why then is everyone so sure my mom did? Why are you?”
“It’s rare what your mother may have done in her sleep. But far from unprecedented. A few years ago, a woman walked into a lake in North Carolina and drowned.”
“I saw that online. I found that news story.”
“There are lots of stories similar to that in their degree of sadness…of strangeness. There are lots of accounts of sleepwalking excursions that could only be called…extreme. People cook in their sleep. They have sex in their sleep. They commit crimes in their sleep. I had a patient a few years ago who was driving in her sleep. One night, she backed her car out of the garage and into the mailbox. That’s when she woke up—and that’s when she came in for treatment. But there had been at least one other time when she didn’t wake up. She drove around. How do we know? She drove to the parking garage down by the waterfront, parked on the top floor, and then walked a mile or so back home.”
“I read that sleepwalking runs in families. Is that true?”
“It is. It certainly can. Are you sleepwalking, Lianna? Have you had an incident? Is that why you’re here now?” She sounded concerned.
I thought about the word now. I guessed my mother must have told the physician that I had walked in my sleep as a little girl. Maybe my mother had filled out that detail on some form. A patient questionnaire. A family history. “No.”
“Good. But please come in if you do—if something happens. Deal?”
“Sure. I’ll call if something happens.”
“Is that it?”
I shook my head and asked, “I know sleepwalking is a non-REM phenomenon. Why is that when people sleepwalk?”
“We only have theories. If you look at the delta waves on an electroencephalograph—an EEG—most of the time you really won’t see a big difference. There isn’t a huge physiologic marker.”
“Is it as simple as the part of the brain that controls judgment is asleep, while the part that controls motor activity is awake?”
“You might say that. But it may also come down to one little chemical messenger in the brain: gamma-aminobutyric acid. GABA. It’s an inhibitor that calms the brain’s motor system. In little kids, the neurons are still developing, which might explain why childhood arousal disorders are so common. And for some people, the inhibitor may always remain a little undeveloped, even into adulthood. Or it may be easily affected by all those environmental factors that we know can trigger a parasomnia. A lack of sleep. Exhaustion. Stress. Certain medications.”
“Had my mom changed her meds?”
“I can’t discuss that.”
“I mean, maybe because my father was going to be gone, she did something different to be sure she’d stay in bed. But whatever she did, maybe it had the opposite effect. Is that possible?”
Yager looked at me, but said absolutely nothing.
“You really can’t tell me,” I murmured.
“I can’t. I just can’t.”
“Can you tell me why she only walked in her sleep when my dad was gone?”
“No.”
“Because you don’t know or because of patient confidentiality?”
“I have my suspicions,” she said, and waved her hand vaguely.
“Have you had other cases like hers?”
“It has certainly happened before: people sleepwalking only when they’re alone in bed. Again, it’s not common. Nothing about sleepwalking is. But there are plenty of documented cases.”
“May I ask one more thing?”
“Of course. I just worry I won’t be much help.”
“Is there any chance my mom killed herself?”
“You mean on purpose?”
“Yes.”