by Lesley Jones
“Mr Delaney?”
“Yes.”
I accepted the hand that she offered.
“Good to meet you. Sorry, I was expecting Sarah. I’m Miss Norton, Carter’s teacher. Just wanted to say what a good boy he’s been today. Extra helpful in the classroom, and he took one of the younger children to first-aid when she fell and hurt herself at lunchtime”
Thank fuck!
“Thanks for letting me know. Carter is always a good boy at home, it’s good to hear that he’s the same at school, too.”
Carter rolled his eyes at me. He knew how full of shit I was.
“Come on, bud, let’s get you home.”
Once we started driving, I asked him about the night before, but he seemed to have his head around it. We didn’t know exactly what any of the kids actually saw, if anything, and I didn’t wanna create an issue if there wasn’t one.
I was surprised to see that Sarah’s car wasn’t in the drive when I pulled up, and a strange sensation started to uncoil in my belly. Something uncomfortable.
The other reason I finished early today was because Sarah and I needed to talk.
Something wasn’t right. We’d had a fantastic holiday last year, and for the first few weeks we were back, everything was great. We were us again, and then we weren’t. It was as if she just checked out on me.
She had been was so quiet. She didn’t come to any of the Christmas functions at the office, and she didn’t come with me when I took the boys to see Santa. We got through Christmas and New Year’s, but she was on autopilot. I had been getting ready to talk her into going to the doctor, but then—as if something had flipped inside her—she seemed lighter. It was like she had this new lease of life. Or someone new to live for. Her nails were now always done, and she’d changed her hair colour at least three times over the past month or so. Why? Why now, so suddenly? I had been thinking all sorts. I trusted my wife, but she was beautiful, and men looked at her. Even when I was with her, some blatantly stared.
Sarah just had that kind of beauty that made men look twice. She didn’t need make-up, her skin was flawless, and she only seemed to get better with age.
The telly was on when I walked into the house, and I was surprised to find Taylor curled up in the corner of our sofa watching it.
“Hey, Tay, where’s Sares?”
“Hey, Liam, hairdressers, I think. She called me just before lunchtime and asked if I could come over and watch the kids till you got home. She said something about getting her hair done . . .”
My stomach churned, and the unease I felt earlier uncoiled a little more. Sarah had her hair done Saturday, just four days ago.
“Lucas has been asleep for about half an hour."
I stared at her blankly as she stood, trying to process her words as my thoughts went into a spin cycle, which was in perfect sync with my stomach.
“Can you do me a favour and just wait here for a bit, I may have to go out again.”
She chewed on her bottom lip before saying, “Er, yeah sure,” as she sat back down.
I hid myself in the study and logged into our banking app on my phone. My hands were shaking, and I shivered as I felt a bead sweat track down my spine.
My legs almost gave way as I stared at my phone screen.
She’d used her card for an unknown charge that afternoon, and then again at the Marriott the next town over.
Why was my wife at a hotel in the middle of the day?
My knees hit the office chair, and I forced myself to sit before I fell down.
I called her mobile again.
“Hey, this is Sarah, sorry you can’t get through. Why don’t you leave your name and your number, then I’ll get back to.”
She sang out her greeting to the tune of De La Soul’s “Ring, Ring, Ring”.
This usually made me smile, but in that moment, it made me want to vomit.
“Sarah, call me back right the fuck now.”
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. There was a reasonable explanation for this.
There had to be.
I shook to the point where I had no control over it. I needed to do something. I couldn’t just sit there and wait for her to come home. If this was what I thought it was, I had to know, even if it changed everything. I had to know the truth. Drawing in another deep breath, I stood and headed back to where Taylor was watching the telly.
“Tay, I need to go out. I’ve no clue how long I’ll be. You all right to stay over if it gets late? I’ll pay ya double."
My head and heart pounded as I stood still for a few seconds waiting on her answer.
“Yeah, of course. Is everything okay? Sarah was—”
“What? Sarah was what, Tay?”
She took in a deep breath and looked around the room as she considered her answer. I swallowed continuously, fighting the urge to throw up as I waited for her response.
“I dunno. Agitated? Stressed out? She was just acting a little strange when I got here, and she couldn't get out the door quick enough.”
Tiredness suddenly overwhelmed me. I felt drained, exhausted. I wanted to go to my bed and curl up to my wife’s warm soft body. I wanted to breathe in her citrusy scent and fall asleep listening to her heartbeat.
Instead, I was about to drive out to a hotel and might possibly catch her in the act of fucking another man.
I nodded my head, but I didn’t know why. I just didn’t have any verbal response to offer.
“Everything’s fine. I’ve gotta go. I have my mobile if you need me.” My legs barely held me up as I walked out of my house and sat in my car. I was cold, but I was sweating. I felt hollow, but my head felt like it would burst with the myriad of thoughts rushing through it.
I didn’t want to start my car. I didn’t want to drive across town. I didn’t want to walk into a hotel room and find my wife with another man.
But what if I did?
What if that was exactly what I found?
What if Sarah had found someone else, had moved on, fallen in love?
I started to cry.
She was the reason my heart beat. What the fuck would I do if she left me? If she was planning on taking my boys away?
My boys. Fuck!
This was my fault. I left her alone too much. I worked too much. I thought back to what my mum had told us on our wedding day . . . “Don’t always take for granted the person you’re heading home to, or that they’ll always be there waiting.”
What if Sarah had finally got sick of waiting just like my mum did? I was always promising her I’d slow down, cut back, just like my dad apparently used to promise my mum.
What if I’d left it too long, and she’d met someone else? Someone that didn’t work long hours? Who wouldn’t leave her to eat dinner alone with the kids every night?
She was friends with Will Bennet on Facebook. What if they’d reconnected? I’d always known he was in love with her. I knew that he’d moved away because of it. What if I’d driven her right back into his waiting arms? What if it was him that was fucking my wife in a hotel room right now?
A loud sob escaped my throat, and I had to wipe my eyes on the back of my hand so that I could see the road clearly.
I’d win her back. Whatever it took, I’d win her back.
I didn’t care what she might’ve done. I’d forgive her anything. Anything. I just couldn’t lose her.
***
I didn’t remember the drive. All I remembered was Cold Play’s “Sky Full of Stars” playing and how it made me think of Sarah. My wife. My beautiful, amazing, perfect, pretty girl. Then, I was there, standing in the lobby and arguing with a receptionist named Cherise.
“Her name is Sarah Delaney. I can show you a screen shot of our joint bank account that will show the transaction details from when she checked in.”
“Sir, I simply can’t give you access to a guest’s room.”
“I don’t want access. I just want you to go and check on her. My wife has a medical cond
ition. She’s not answering her mobile, and she’s not answering the room phone. You know this, you just tried it yourself.”
I lied and lied and lied some more. I needed to get in that room. I just hoped and prayed that I was wrong about what I thought I would find.
I pushed my hands down into my pockets to try to stop them from shaking but then tried for a different tactic. I rested them on top of the front desk and let the receptionist see how badly they shook, how upset I was.
“Please,” I said very quietly. “I’m really fucking worried.”
She drew in a long deep breath and let it out painfully slow.
“Okay, we’ll go and check on Mrs Delaney, but we’ll require you to remain here while we—”
“No. No fucking way. She’s my wife, now please, let’s go and check on her before I call the police, an ambulance, and the fucking army if I have to.”
She checked something on her computer, picked up a plastic key card, and came out from behind her desk.
I followed her to the lift, and we travelled to the fourth floor. I felt as if I was about to vomit up my insides—heart, lungs, all of it.
I was out the lift before she was. “Room number?”
“Sir, I can’t give . . .” She stopped and glanced to her left, holding the key card tightly in her hand. I held up both my hands and stepped back.
This was it. This was the moment that could change my world forever. She knocked, and I held my breath. When there wasn’t an answer, she turned to me with an apologetic look on her face and shrugged. No, she was not just going to leave. I snatched the card before she could stop me and had the door opened instantly. I took three steps into the room and stopped. It took me a few seconds to work out what I was looking at.
I could hear Cherise behind me on her walkie-talkie, but I didn’t hear her words.
Sarah was curled on one side of the bed, the arm that was underneath her was sticking out over the side, and her head was twisted at an awkward angle resting on it. There was an empty bottle of wine on the bedside table with a foil pill pack, all the little pill slots broken open next to it.
My brain registered all of this in seconds but came up with no explanation as to what it meant.
And then I worked out exactly what it meant. I knew exactly what it was I was looking at, and my legs propelled me forward of their own volition.
“Call an ambulance. Call an ambulance!” I shouted as I climbed across the bed.
I yanked Sarah towards me, and she was limp, lifeless. Her head flopped unnaturally, and it was horrible. So fucking horrible. She was lifeless.
A noise escaped my throat. A moan, a cry, a sob. Maybe a combination of all three.
“I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do!” I didn’t know whom I was asking. I didn’t know if I was shouting, screaming, or crying. I didn’t even know if I was speaking aloud.
“Sir, the ambulance is on its way. The operator’s on the line, she can help.”
Cherise laid a mobile phone down next to me.
“Okay, sir, my name is Lisa, what’s yours?” The operator asked.
“Liam.”
“Ok, Liam. I need you stay calm and help me out.”
“Sarah, her name’s Sarah.”
I felt the side of Sarah’s neck, looking for a pulse, but I couldn’t feel anything. I panicked. I panicked and I fucking lost it.
“I can’t find it. She’s not breathing. What do I do? What do I do?” My words came out in a tumble.
“First, I need you to calm down, Liam. What can’t you find?”
“Her pulse. Sarah. She’s my wife, and I can’t find her pulse.”
“Okay, forget about finding her pulse, I want you to check that nothing is obstructing Sarah’s airway.”
“She’s been sick.”
“She’s been sick?”
“Yes.”
“Is she being sick now?”
“No, before I got here. There’s vomit over her arm and on the floor beside her.”
“Okay, while you clear her airway can you tell me if you can see any alcohol, or any medication in the vicinity?”
“Yeah, there’s wine.”
I opened Sarah’s mouth, stuck two fingers inside, and scooped them around. I must have forced them down a little too far, because she gagged. It was the best sound I had ever fucking heard, and I started to sob harder. I held Sarah to my chest, and I cried.
“She gagged. She gagged. She gagged.”
“That’s good. That’s a good sign, Liam. The paramedics are almost with you. They’re in the building and making their way to the room.
They stormed the room and forced me to do the hardest thing I had ever done in my life.
I let her go.
I let them take over. I stood and watched as they listened to her heart, took her blood pressure, set up a drip, and placed an oxygen mask over her face.
I had my fingers laced together and my hands pressing down on the top of my head.
Cherise stood next to me, saying something to the medics about the wine and the tablets, and then one of them picked up the packet. “Stilnox.”
He turned to me. “Do you know how many were in here? How many she might have taken?”
I shook my head.
“No. No. What are they?”
“Sleeping tablets.”
They worked to get her on a stretcher as we talked, and I followed them out of the room. Cherise led the way to the service lift, which had more room in it, but I couldn’t focus on what anyone else was doing.
“We don’t—she doesn’t take sleeping tablets. We don’t have them.”
“Well, she got them from somewhere.”
“I don’t know. Will she be okay? She gonna be all right?”
We climbed into the back of the ambulance, and I had to hold on to the seat as the driver flipped on the sirens and sped out of the parking bay.
“Let’s get her to the hospital, get some blood tests done, and go from there. You wanna come up here and hold her hand?”
I nodded, and we switched places. I reached out and both of my shaky hands enveloped Sarah’s. It felt small. It felt frail. It felt cold. It broke my fucking heart.
The next half hour or so was a blur. We were whisked into the emergency department, but they wouldn’t let me follow. All I could do was stand and watch as they took my wife away.
I gave all of the personal information on Sarah that I could offer to the administration staff, and then they showed me to a waiting room.
I sat, and then I stood. I paced, sat, stood, sat, and then paced again. Then I called Luke.
“Arsewipe?”
“You need to come to St Johns.”
I was surprised by the calmness of my voice.
“What? The hospital? Why, what’s happened?”
I didn’t know. What had happened? How? Why? My head spun, and I just wanted to sleep.
“Del? I’m on my way. What the fucks happened?”
“Sarah.”
“What?”
“Please just get here.”
He was there however long later. Could’ve been an hour, could’ve been a minute. I had no clue. I was sitting with my elbows on my knees, hands clasped together, and my head hanging down between them. I didn’t look up when the door opened. I was too scared to. Terrified of who it might be and what they might tell me.
“What happened?”
Luke asked very quietly.
“Overdose.”
“What? What the fuck?”
I heard and felt him fall down into the chair next to me.
“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.”
