Adam rolled over restlessly and opened his eyes. He’d been lying in the dark for hours now, but he couldn’t quiet his mind enough to sleep. It was the first night he’d gone to bed alone since he and the nanny had taken up together, and he regretted now that he hadn’t smoothed things over with her earlier. It wasn’t her fault that Adele was growing attached to her.

“But if you adopt me then Daddy could be my daddy and you could be my mommy.” That’s what Adele had said to her when they’d gone to tuck her in earlier. He’d wanted to scream at both of them, “You already have a mommy!” But was that even true?

He’d bitten his tongue, closing the subject instead by sending the nanny out of the room. He’d been brusque, and he knew it wasn’t fair to her, but her response to Adele had annoyed him. “That would be nice,” was all she had said. What was she thinking, encouraging Adele like that? Trying to insinuate herself in both their lives. It was way too soon to talk about any of it.

He hadn’t gone back downstairs afterward, going to his bedroom and shutting the door instead. He’d wondered if she would come to him anyway, but he’d heard the creak of her own door opening and closing when she’d crept upstairs around midnight. At least she had enough sense to give him some space.

He gave up on sleep now. Maybe music would help. He slipped in his earbuds and hit shuffle on his iPod, closing his eyes again as he listened. The lyrics of one of his own songs, Tangled, were the last words he heard as he drifted off at last:

You’re just innocent,
A helpless victim of a spider's web.
And I'm an insect,
Going after anything that I can get…

He awoke in a cold sweat, unsure if he’d been asleep for minutes or hours. His heart was pounding from the nightmare he’d been having. He’d been outside trying to walk to the hospital, to get to Jane. The Jane. His wife Jane. He’d taken a shortcut through the fields, but the grapevines there kept growing and growing as he walked. They’d started winding themselves around his ankles and then crawling up his legs. Snaking up and up and up until he was bound so tight he couldn’t move, and he’d been trapped there, halfway between the house and the hospital.

The iPod was no longer playing, but the last song he’d heard was still stuck in his head.

And I've done you so wrong,
Treated you bad,
Strung you along.

Oh shame on myself.
I don't know how I got so tangled…

Hopelessly tangled, he thought to himself, as his heart slowly returned to its normal rhythm. How had he gotten himself into this mess? Adele was getting attached to the nanny. There was no denying it. And the truth was, he was getting attached to her too. That’s why he’d been upset earlier. Not because it felt wrong for the three of them to spend the evening together – but because it felt so right. Eating dinner at the kitchen table. Curling up on a couch in front of a movie. Tucking their little girl into bed together after she fell asleep. Like a family, the way he’d always imagined it would be.

Just with a different Jane, that’s all. It was supposed to be that way with the Jane he had married. The Jane he had promised on his wedding day that he would always love. The Jane who’d been so self-conscious about her age. The Jane who’d probably murder him in his bed if she woke up one day and found him remarried to a 22 year old.

If only she would wake up. Then Adele would have her real mother. But it had been three years already with no sign of progress. Was he being an idiot to keep holding on to that hope? Should he just let it go? Move on with his life? Give Adele a stepmother? Would the courts even give him a divorce when his wife was in a coma?

And would this new Jane even want him anymore when she found out the lie he’d told her? She was growing attached to him and Adele now too, but she didn’t know the truth. She thought he was a widower. He should have come clean when they’d first started sleeping together, he knew. He should have confessed that first night. But he just couldn’t quite bear to see that look of disapproval on her face again. It was just a fling, he had tried to reassure himself. It wasn’t like he was making her any promises. But the longer he delayed, the more entangled he became in his web of deceit.

Maybe he should break it off with her now, before he got in any deeper. He should end the affair and send her away and go back to how things were before. But how could he, when Adele was so attached?

The thoughts swirled in his mind, circling back on themselves in an endless loop, and through it all he couldn’t shake the image of the grapevines from his dream, curling up and up around his neck and over his face. Sealing him there in a living grave, caught halfway between the two Janes in his life, unable to get to either of them.

With a shudder, he switched on his lamp and hit play again on his iPod, seeking other music to get the song he’d been listening to out of his head. Another old Maroon 5 song came on first. Get Back in My Life.

I'm wrapped up, I'm sealed
So tight I'll never be free.
Oh, I don't fight the feeling…

“Ugh,” he groaned, switching the music back off again. He glanced at the time. 4:14 AM. He should go back to sleep, but the dream was still so fresh in his mind. He sat up instead and picked up the copy of Jane Eyre that was sitting on his side table. “Tell me a bedtime story, Jane Eyre,” he muttered as he flicked the book open to a random page and began to read:

Tongues of flame darted round the bed: the curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze and vapour, Mr. Rochester lay stretched motionless, in a deep sleep.

“Wake! Wake!” I cried. I shook him, but he only murmured and turned: the smoke had stupefied him. Not a moment could be lost: the very sheets were kindling…

Adam wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep this time when a sound woke him again. Someone was knocking at his bedroom door. He opened his mouth to answer, but the door swung open before he could make a sound, and the words died in his throat when he saw who it was. Jane. His Jane. Awake. Alive and well.

“Come to bed, little girl,” he whispered to her, lifting the covers for her to crawl in beside him. She came toward him, and he extended his arm toward her, his fingertips already tingling in anticipation as they reached out to touch her. She stopped short, just out of his reach, and it was then that he noticed what she was wearing – an old-fashioned white cotton nightgown. And she was carrying a candle too, like a character out of the 19th century novel he'd just been reading.

The longing he felt turned to horror as he watched her. She lifted her arm and put her sleeve in the candle flame, setting her nightgown ablaze before climbing into the bed with him. The fire began to spread, but he could only lie there, motionless, paralyzed, watching the flames leap and crackle.

“Liar, liar,” she said, shaking a finger at him, like a teacher admonishing a small child. “Liar, liar, bed on fire.”

He heard himself begin to scream as he watched the flames spread. Now to the bedsheets. Now to her hair.

“Your hair, Jane! Your hair!” He reached out and patted wildly at her head, trying to put out the fire.

“Adam!” she was shouting at him now. “Adam! Adam! Wake up!”

The words penetrated his consciousness, and he opened his eyes to see the woman sitting on the bed shaking him. It was Jane. Not his wife. Jane. The nanny. Her hair wasn’t on fire. Not on fire. Just red.

He began to shiver uncontrollably as she crawled into the bed next to him. “Shhhh,” she whispered, putting her arms around him. “It’s OK. It was just a dream.” He buried his face in her hair with a stifled sob.

She stroked his back, and he clung to her as she shushed him gently like a little boy. He tried to focus on the sound of her voice. But the music was still there, always there, stuck in his head. The last song he’d heard before he fell asleep played on and on.

Get back in my life, come knock on my door.
What I'm looking for, I think you should know.
You started a fire, burned me to the floor.

Please don’t resist anymore.

I’ll never leave you alone.