Page 40 of The Happy Family

Rehab. Exercise. Cognitive tests. Counselling. Physical and psychological therapy. Those were all the things that the doctor told me I was going to have to go through before I could even consider myself recovered. Hearing such a daunting and depressing thing was scary, but at the time, I was still riding the wave of actually waking up, plus I am still on so many meds that I was able to shrug it off and declare that I would be fine. Now, as I lie here by myself after my failed attempt to stand up, the reality of my situation is hitting me as harshly as a bright sunrise dawns on a party animal who has left it too late to go to bed.

I am weak. I am vulnerable. I am half the woman I used to be.

That would be bad news at any time.

But it’s catastrophic news now.

That’s because I have so much to do.

So much to catch up on.

So much revenge to take on the woman who did this to me.

Despite my fragile appearance and the lies I told to the medical staff and my family members when I woke up, I am not as ailing as I seem. My head might hurt and my muscles might have atrophied, but I can remember everything about the events that led me here.

How I was at my old house.

How I was there to get Reid and my children away from Luna.

How I had realised that she was behind all the bad things that had happened.

I remember knocking on the door. I remember her dragging me into the garage. I remember us arguing as I told her the game was up and I would see to it that she paid for what she had done. Then I remember running through the house, the pair of us fighting, arguing. The slash of the knife as I tried to get away from her. Sprinting into the hallway to try and get upstairs to where my ex-husband and our children slept. And lastly, losing my footing and slipping before I banged my head hard and everything went black.

I have retained every single memory of what happened before my accident and coma. That includes Gemma sending me a message from prison – she alerted me that it could be Luna, and her warning allowed me to piece it all together. I need to speak to that woman. I need to thank her, but I also need to work with her so we can catch Luna. Because that’s what the plan has to be now, except history has taught me I have to be extremely careful. I went in too strong and acted too recklessly the last time I tried to catch Luna and look what it cost me. I’m lucky to be alive. If I’d died, she could have got away with it all and spent the rest of her life living with my family. So I have to do this a better way. That’s why I am lying to my family now. I am not letting them know I have my full memory because it’s safer for me that way.

It’s safer if Luna thinks I have forgotten.

If she does, she won’t try and hurt me before I can expose her.

If she hasn’t tried already.

I am aware that she was in this room when I came out of my coma, and while I’m not aware of what she might have been doing before I woke up, it does seem strange that she was here by herself with me. I suspect she was about to try and kill me. Perhaps that plot was already underway and it’s what caused my brain and body to suddenly wake up. I’ll never know for sure, as that part genuinely is a blur. But I did wake up and Luna is no longer here with me.

As far as she knows, I have amnesia and that’s the way I want to keep it.

That’s the way she’ll let her guard down around me and that’s the way I’ll be able to keep her close.

That’s the way I’ll finally be able to have my revenge for what she has done to my family…

TWENTY-EIGHT

REID

I wish we hadn’t had to leave Sadie so suddenly after she had woken up. I wish I wasn’t apart from Luna. I wish my children were happy and we weren’t stuck in this strange scenario.

More than anything, I wish we weren’t currently locked down in a hospital.

But that’s the situation we find ourselves in. I’m currently with Jude, Arthur, Ruby, and Sadie’s parents and we are surrounded by other members of the public who had been here to see loved ones only to find themselves shepherded into this waiting area by a tense team of nurses. Nobody is telling us what is going on and what the deafening alarm means, just that we have to stay here and are not to go anywhere until we are told it is okay to do so. But that’s easier said than done when you have three children with you, including a very young baby who is hungry and tired and restless and about as happy as being crammed into a small room with bright lighting and a bunch of strangers as his father is.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Sadie’s father says and for the first time in a long time when it comes to us, I have to agree with him.

‘I just wish they’d turn the alarm off,’ Sadie’s mum adds and I certainly agree with that. But even if the alarm was to cease now, it’s been blaring for so long that I imagine that I’ll still be able to hear it ringing in my ears for a long time yet. Such is the loudness of it, I have taken to trying to cup my hands over Jude’s ears, afraid the prolonged alarm might damage his hearing, or at least make him even more upset than he is. But it’s not easy to keep a baby in the position you want them to be, and he keeps wriggling his head away from my hands, understandably because I’d get annoyed too if somebody kept trying to cover my ears.

Jude wants his mummy, and right now, I want her too. But we can’t get to Luna because all the doors between us are shut and guarded by someone in a uniform, be it a doctor or a nurse, as if we can’t be trusted not to try and sneak out if they weren’t there.

Whatever is going on here at this hospital, it must be very serious.

But while I can’t get to Luna physically, I can message her, so I pass Jude to Sadie’s mum, which is slightly awkward, especially with Sadie’s father glaring at me as I do it. But having free hands allows me to take out my phone and text my girlfriend.