Finnegan's Field Read Online Free PDF Page B

of it .
    â€œLook, it was me, my fault. Maddie hasn’t been sleeping well and I … I put half a Valium in her hot chocolate last night. Maybe it reacted with the anti-anxiety meds?” Anne knew she was clutching at straws but saw him pause, considering. She went on.“ She’s been through so much, Terry. It’s not her fault. Surely, she was due some kind of a fit like this? Jason was telling me that she’s bound to have some anger issues that we didn’t find her, that we left her to whatever happened. It’s not a conscious thing.”
    â€œWell, I’m no psychologist, but…”
    â€œLet us take her home. If she’s calm now, please just let us take her home. I can’t bear to leave her here. She needs us and we need her.”
    â€œShe’s calmed right down, but she’s still restrained. I’ll tell the nurses to release her.” He shook a finger. “I’m not best pleased about this.”
    â€œI know, Terry. But I’m her mum. I know her. She needs me.” She kissed his wrinkled cheek. “Thank you.”
    The painkillers took the edge off the physical pain but not the mental anguish. Anne paused outside the door of Madrigal’s private room. She’d seen Brian disappear down the corridor towards the cafeteria and figured she didn’t have long. She slipped inside and found the not-daughter staring at her, as if it had known she was coming.
    â€œI’m sorry,” it said formally, briskly. “The child remains and she is strong. She smelled the scent on you, and she overwhelmed me. It is … it is not how I would have had it. I am … poisoned by her, compromised.”
    The thought gave Anne a little pleasure, a tiny pride that her baby clung on so tenaciously, but she put sternness into her tone. “Will it happen again?”
    â€œShe knows now it was not you, that she was mistaken. She is calm. She is sorry.”
    â€œMaddie?” said Anne, talking beyond the creature, addressing her daughter as if she stood over its shoulder. “Maddie, hang on, love. We’ll finish it tonight.”
    *   *   *
    Brian didn’t argue when she offered him the tablets before bed. The way his eyes seemed to shuttle back and forth, left to right, the way his leg bounced up and down restlessly as he sat, even as he drove them home from the hospital, the way his fingers tapped and his hands shook, and he kept swallowing.
    When her husband was snoring, if not happily then at least consistently, Anne dressed in black jeans and T-shirt, sneakers so old she wouldn’t care if she had to get rid of them, then went to her daughter’s room.
    Madrigal was already prepared, neat in identical attire, her hair pulled into a tidy bun. She sat on the edge of the bed, small feet dangling, kicking as if she was waiting for a play date. She responded to the jerk of Anne’s head and trotted along beside her. As they stepped outside into the midnight dark, she slipped her little hand into Anne’s, who felt that not only were her fingers being squeezed, but her heart as well.
    They’d not put the car in the garage that night. Don’t bother, Brian, we’re too tired, straight to bed, the lot of us , she’d said, and he hadn’t insisted. She released the brake and let it roll down the slope of the drive, then strained to push it along the street a little ways before getting in at the next intersection and starting the engine. All the windows in the cul-de-sac were blackened eyes, bar one. Anne thought she saw a curtain twitch at Mrs Flynn’s but didn’t pay much attention. She didn’t think the old lady would be a problem.
    Twenty minutes later, out beyond the town’s boundaries, Anne turned off the headlights and slowed, hoping they wouldn’t hit anything. She was about to swing into a long winding driveway until she saw headlights coming towards her; she