trying to unpick whether I’d been experiencing actual hallucinations, or simply delusions. It mattered for the treatment, apparently. Had I actually seen the doctors on the TV or the screen of my phone, telling me, Not like that, you’re doing it all wrong, or had I merely believed they were in there? Both, I decided. Why else would I have hurled one of Theo’s full nappies at the TV to shut it up? Why else would I have flung my iPhone at the wall? In any case, it was a relief not to have to worry about Pete’s increasingly concerned texts—U still angry with me? Pls call—but then the bits from the broken phone must have gotten inside the wall because the doctors started using it as a big screen to project their messages on instead. I worked out that if I turned the microwave on to the maximum setting, the radio waves spun out by the revolving turntable would block the messages and give me some relief, and they did.
And then Pete came back.
He’d abandoned the ride in York and boarded a train to London. He found me curled up on the kitchen floor, lying on sheets of tinfoil to protect myself from the doctors’ messages. Theo was on his back a few feet away, nappyless. Nearby, I’d lined up twenty full bottles of milk, ready to feed him with. The radio was on to drown the sound of his crying, and I’d hooked up a calculator to the microwave so I could monitor his vital signs.
* * *
—
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT is fuzzy. It didn’t take Pete long to realize he had to call an ambulance, and the paramedics arranged an emergency mental health assessment. I was admitted to a psychiatric ward and given antipsychotics and mood stabilizers. There were no spaces in a mother-and-baby unit, so Pete looked after Theo until I was well enough to come home. It took three weeks, and even then they only let me out when I agreed to join the support group I’d spurned before and do a course of cognitive therapy. When I got home, tired but calm again, I found the house full of flowers and a banner over the front door that read WELCOME HOME MUMMY. Pete had tidied and cleaned—he told me later it had taken two bottles of bleach to get rid of the smell of the soiled nappies I’d been storing under beds and sofas in case the doctors needed to examine them—and even bought Theo a bigger set of babygrows. When I lifted him from Pete’s arms into mine, he smelled of fabric conditioner and warm milk and love.
“I’m sorry about the bike ride,” Pete said softly.
I shook my head. “Don’t be. Besides, how could you have known what was wrong with me? Even the health visitor didn’t realize.” I looked around. “This place looks great.”
“We’ve been having a good time.” Pete stroked Theo’s cheek, now plump and full like a baby’s should be. “Though he’s missed his mummy, of course,” he added quickly.
“You don’t have to tiptoe around me now, Pete. I left Horrible Angry Maddie back in the psych ward.”
He nodded. “I’ve arranged to work from home for a while, even so.”
“Won’t Karen mind?” Karen was his editor, a woman Pete professed to admire but who I always thought sounded petulant and passive-aggressive when Pete described their interactions.
“She’s really supportive. It’ll mean doing more roundups, but…” Pete shrugged. As newspaper budgets were cut, lists—as opposed to actual assignments—were taking up more and more of the travel section. There was even a weekly feature: Twelve Traveltastic…In the past few months, Pete had compiled “Twelve Traveltastic Beaches,” “Twelve Traveltastic Christmas Markets,” “Twelve Traveltastic Tapas Bars,” and “Twelve Traveltastic Tuscan Villas.” There was no actual travel involved, of course—the recommendations were sourced entirely from the internet, reviews from TripAdvisor lightly disguised with the word expect, as in “Expect pale-cream rooms and a poolside barbecue,” to cover the fact that the journalist hadn’t actually been there. It was dispiriting, mechanical work, and the fact that Pete was volunteering to do more of it in order to spend more time with me and our baby filled me with gratitude.
“Saint Peter. Bronagh was right. I’m so lucky to have you.”
“I’m the lucky one, Mads. I’ve got you and Theo.” He stroked Theo’s head, then glanced at me. “One of the dads who organized the ride—Greg—isn’t going back to work. He’s planning on being a stay-at-home dad.”
“That’s