Chapter 22
Shelby finds me writhing on the kitchen floor, screaming, “Get them off me!” I’m frantically scratching and clawing at my legs, out of my mind with panic. My confused and alarmed mother-in-law kneels beside me, trying to help.
“But…there’s nothing there, Tilly!” she says. Her hands touch my arms, my legs, but they miss the insects. “What is it? What is it, honey?”
A second later the room goes quiet. No mass fluttering of wings. Stanley stops barking. The cockroaches, every last one of them, are gone. Disappeared in a poof, as though by magic.
I whip my head around, looking for the insects. Shelby’s distress at finding me on the floor like this is evident: eyes wide, mouth pulled tight, a slight tremor in her hands.
“I’m sorry, Shelby. I don’t know what happened. There were…bugs, cockroaches! Flying around the…in the box and then…Wow, I must be dehydrated again. I’m okay.”
I’m rattled, all over the place with my explanation. I’m also hyperventilating, which makes each word come out in a forced staccato.
Shelby helps me up from the floor and into a chair, then gets me a glass of water. I apologize again for not making sense, and beg her not to tell Wyatt. She finally agrees, though it’s reluctant.
But I should have known it was a promise only to soothe me in the moment.
After all, she was there when I collapsed at twenty-nine weeks with Poppy.
On this same kitchen floor. Surely she remembers the blood as well as I do.
So Shelby was always going to tell Wyatt about this.
In her shoes, I suppose I would do the same.