Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

16
There was no way around it. The sleeping arrangements just weren’t working.
Every weekend that Treena came home, the Clark family began a lengthy,
nocturnal game of musical beds. After supper on Friday night Mum and Dad
would offer up their bedroom, and Treena would accept it, after they had
reassured her that no, they were not in the least bit put out, and how much better
Thomas was at sleeping in a room he knew. It would mean, they said, that
everyone got a good night’s sleep.
But Mum sleeping downstairs also involved her and Dad needing their own
quilt, their own pillows and even under-sheet, as Mum couldn’t sleep properly
unless her bed was just as she liked it. So after supper she and Treena would
strip Mum and Dad’s bed and put on a new set of sheets, together with a mattress
protector, just in case Thomas had an accident. Mum and Dad’s bedding,
meanwhile, would be folded and placed in the corner of the living room, where
Thomas would dive into it and on to it and string the sheet across the dining
chairs to turn it into a tent.
Granddad offered his room, but nobody took it. It smelt of yellowing copies of
the Racing Post and Old Holborn, and it would have taken all weekend to clear
out. I would alternately feel guilty – all this was my fault, after all – while
knowing I would not offer to return to the box room. It had become a kind of
spectre for me, that airless little room with no windows. The thought of sleeping
in there again made my chest feel tight. I was twenty-seven years old. I was the
main earner of the family. I could not sleep in what was essentially a cupboard.
One weekend I offered to sleep at Patrick’s, and everyone looked secretly
relieved. But then, while I was away, Thomas put sticky fingers all over my new
blinds and drew on my new duvet cover in permanent pen, at which point Mum