The Family Next Door

by Sally Hepworth

  “What does Isabelle do for a job?” Fran asked. Ava had fallen asleep with her cheek squished comfortably against Fran’s forearm. “Did you get the scoop from her application form?’

  “Apparently she works for a not-for-profit,” Ange said. “I’ve always thought that was an odd way to describe a business—a not-for-profit. Why not say what you actually do?”

  “Which not-for-profit?” Fran asked.

  Ange waved her hand. “Oh, I can’t remember. They’re all the same, aren’t they?”

  Fran was on maternity leave from her job at a law firm, but Essie knew she’d worked as in-house counsel for Save the Children for several years before that. Her expression said they were not all the same. Fran may have been about to say as much, but Ava chose that moment to open her eyes and spit up on Fran’s white shorts.

  “And this is why I wear white,” she said.

  If Ange was the image of the life you wanted to lead, Fran was the image of the person you want to be. She and her husband, Nigel, were intellectuals, the type who sat around discussing highbrow topics like religion and politics and art. At least that’s what they’d done during Christmas drinks last year. Poor Ben had been so out of his depth he had spent the whole night nodding and saying, “What an interesting thought,” and “Gee, I never thought of it like that.”

  “So I guess she went around to the whole street last night, introducing herself,” Ange said.

  “I guess she did,” Essie said.

  Fran pulled a packet of baby wipes out of a navy quilted diaper bag. “I read an article recently that said that people who knew their neighbors were sixty-seven percent less likely to be the victims of crime.”

  Ange rolled her eyes. “There’s no crime in Sandringham.”

  “Um, hello?” Fran said, wiping at her shorts. “Emily Lynch?”

  Emily Lynch was the baby taken from her grandmother’s porch last year. Her gran had taken the pram outside as it was stuffy in the house and she wanted to give her some fresh air. She’d sat out there with her for an hour, reading her novel, before ducking inside to go to the bathroom. The phone had rung while she was inside; she’d been gone for a maximum of ten minutes. That was eight months ago. The initial horror at the baby’s disappearance had died down to the odd news report of a lead that never came to anything. Now people mentioned it occasionally with somber faces, her name a reminder of what could happen if you didn’t watch your kids. (I never let my kids outside alone, not for a second, people said now. Remember Emily Lynch?)

  “I blame the grandma,” Fran continued. “Who would leave a baby alone like that? It’s no wonder she was taken.”

  A funny silence permeated the room. Essie kept her eyes down, burying her lips in the back of Polly’s head.

  Finally, Fran inhaled sharply. “Oh, no no … I didn’t mean—”

  The neighbors all knew what had happened that day, even though they never ever talked about it. It was one of those baffling things about adult relationships. The way you needed to pretend. In any case, Fran was right. Mia could have been taken that day. Essie had been lucky.

  “But Emily Lynch was taken from Chelsea,” Ange said quickly. “That’s half an hour from here.”

  But it was too late; everyone’s eyes had gone far away. Fran held Ava close, rocking her unnecessarily. Essie watched the two little girls playing in the corner of the room.

  Ange’s eyes darted back and forth, clearly unhappy with the change of mood. She wouldn’t like people feeling unsafe in Sandringham, and certainly not in Pleasant Court. It would almost feel like a slight on Ange herself. She fidgeted for a moment, then a light came on in her eyes.

  “I have an idea!” she cried. “We’ll start a neighborhood watch.”

  4

  FRAN

  Even before she got inside, Fran heard it. The tiny, insistent cry. She’d just been for a quick after-dinner run but she felt a sudden pulse of shame, as if she’d gone to the casino or headed out in search of a quick hit of something when she should have been caring for her baby. She didn’t remember feeling like this when Rosie was a newborn. Perhaps it was just another of those things she’d forgotten—like how small they are, and how complete the exhaustion is.

  She threw open the front door. A fan rotated in the corner, blowing hot air back and forth in a way that reminded Fran of a small-town murder film. They had air-conditioning but Nigel didn’t like to use it—terrible for the environment, he said. (Every day, after he went to work, Fran turned it on full blast.)

  Nigel was already heaving himself out of his chair. He was still in his work clothes, but his shirtsleeves were rolled up and his cheeks were flushed. He and Rosie sat in front of a thousand-piece puzzle that they’d been working on for a week. Fran had told Nigel it was far too advanced for a three-year-old, but it was hard to argue when Rosie was currently too engrossed in it to even notice Fran was home.

  “Sit, sit,” she said. “I’ll deal with Ava.”

  “I don’t mind—”

  “It’s fine. She’ll want me anyway.”

  Nigel leveled his gaze at her. His thick, dark eyelashes curled up under his glasses. (How does a man end up with eyelashes like that? Ange always said when she saw him. It’s not fair and it’s not right!) There was a question in his eyes.

  In the past six weeks Fran had barely let him near Ava, which perhaps wasn’t so unusual. Breastfeeding mothers typically stayed close to their babies, and most new dads were grateful for that. But it was more than that and Nigel knew it. He remembered how she’d let him share the load when Rosie was a baby. (She had one clear memory of threatening to withhold sex for a year unless he “picked up that baby and took her out of earshot for at least an hour.”) So it was only a matter of time before he asked her what was going on. She met his gaze and waited. But after giving her a long look, he just shrugged and dropped back into his chair.

  It wouldn’t be today.

  Fran jogged to Ava’s room.

  It was true, Ava would want her. There were, after all, certain things only Fran could do. She knew the exact way to jiggle her to bring up wind. She knew that Ava liked the cradle hold best, with her head tucked into Fran’s chest. That stroking the top part of her nose, the part between the eyebrows, could put her to sleep almost instantaneously. She could have told Nigel how to do these things, but then, of course, he’d do them. And for now it was better if she did things herself.

  Ava was wrapped in a thin muslin cloth and Fran unbundled her, sweeping through a checklist in her mind. She shouldn’t be hungry yet. She wasn’t wet. She lifted her bottom to her nose. Not dirty either.

  “What is it, little one?’

  The answers, of course, were endless. Fran found it perplexing how baffled new mothers became when they couldn’t identify a problem with their babies. She’s not hot or cold, her diaper is clean, she’s been fed! they’d cry. What could it possibly be? For goodness sake, Fran always thought. It could be anything! Maybe she had a headache? She might have had a bad dream or recalled a distressing incident. Maybe she didn’t like the terry-cloth onesie she’d been dressed in. (Fran always found terry cloth irritating.) Perhaps she had a sore toe.

  “Do you have a sore toe?” she asked Ava, pressing her fragile little head into the crook of her neck. She let out a few sobs. “Shhh,” Fran said into her ear. “Mummy’s here.”

  She was a bad mother, that was the problem. What was she thinking leaving her baby so she could jog the streets like a lunatic? For one thing, her doctor had said she should wait eight weeks before resuming normal exercise, and Ava was only six weeks old. Then again, Fran wasn’t resuming “normal” exercise—there was nothing normal about what she was doing. Every day she ran until her chest burned, until her legs ached, until blisters lined her feet. It hurt, oh God it hurt. And she deserved every bit of it.

  “Are you hot?” she asked. It was a stupid question because really, who wasn’t? Ava’s neck was damp and she smelled sweetly of sweat—there was a
little spot just behind her ear that was particularly fragrant. She peeled off her onesie and immediately she calmed down.

  In the living room Rosie whooped—clearly she’d placed a tricky piece of the puzzle. Fran pictured her pumping her little fists in the air while Nigel gave her a moderated smile or a word of encouragement. Nigel wasn’t the dad who talked in baby voices or pretended to be impressed with something unimpressive. He was logical and literal and matter-of-fact. But he had other qualities. He was endlessly patient, for one thing. He researched preschools and primary schools and read books about parenting. He did thousand-piece puzzles. And Rosie adored him.

  Ava let out a long sigh. There you go, Fran thought. You were hot. The great mystery is solved. Fran rebundled her loosely in the muslin, quickly checking her toes (not squashed or tangled) and popped her back in her crib. Her breathing had steadied and her eyelids were three-quarters closed and Fran had one of those powerful waves of love reserved for parents of children who are asleep.

  She and Nigel had always planned to have two children, two years apart. So when Rosie was a year old, Fran hadn’t expected resistance from Nigel when she suggested it was time to try again.

  “It’s just … I’m not sure it’s such a good idea after all,” he’d said.

  That had been a surprise. The Nigel Fran knew didn’t deviate from what had been planned. Then again, he hadn’t been the Nigel she knew for months.

  “It’s postnatal mapression,” Ange had told her when she’d complained about it one day. “Man-depression. A lot of men get it when they have young children. They lose an income, gain a mouth, and all of a sudden it feels like everyone has more money than they do. Add to this that their wives usually stop wanting to have sex with them, and you’ve got a recipe for an miserable bloke.”

  “Maybe,” she’d said, but she had a feeling it was more than that.

  And as it turned out, she was right.

  Nigel had lost a large chunk of their savings last year in a bad investment. They weren’t in dire straits—they wouldn’t have to sell the house or anything—but it had put them back a good ten years in terms of their financial position.

  “Well,” she’d said, when he told her. “What’s done is done. It’s not the end of the world.”

  But to Nigel it was. He wallowed and wallowed. Once a self-professed morning person, he started sleeping late, and at night when he’d come home from work he flopped onto the couch and remained there for the entire evening. When Fran tried speaking with him about it, he hadn’t wanted to talk—about anything. Especially not about having another child.

  Fran kissed Ava’s forehead and left the room. Nigel and Rosie had abandoned their puzzle and now they sat on the floor of her bedroom, staring at a children’s atlas together. This was Rosie’s favorite bedtime story.

  “Need any help?” she asked, popping her head around the corner.

  Nigel and Rosie both looked up, their mannerisms so in sync and identical it took Fran’s breath away.

  “We’re good,” Nigel said. His glasses had fallen down his nose and he pushed them up with his index finger. Under their magnification, his eyelashes looked even longer and thicker. Rosie had those lashes too. In fact, from her serious blue eyes to her jet-black hair, Rosie was every inch her father’s daughter.

  “We’re good,” Rosie repeated.

  “I’ll go take a shower then,” she said to the tops of their heads.

  Fran showered and slipped on a cotton nightie. She checked her phone—there was a message from Ange about needing her help to distribute flyers for the neighborhood watch. After leaving Essie’s, she must have gone straight home, designed flyers, then headed directly to Staples to have them printed. Fran replied that she’d help, only because if she didn’t, Ange would just give her some other job to do and, on the whole, handing out flyers seemed fairly innocuous. She might even do it while running.

  The house was quiet by the time she left her bedroom—all Fran could hear was the hum of the rotating fan. Rosie’s light was off. Fran peeked into Ava’s room and was startled to see Nigel, bent over the crib, his face hovering inches from Ava’s.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, louder than she meant to.

  Nigel looked up and frowned. “Kissing my daughter goodnight.” He crept out of the room, horseshoeing around her into the hallway. “Are you all right?’

  Fran wondered if she was all right. For months she’d lived with this feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach, a feeling that any moment her whole world could unravel. Usually it hovered around the edges of her consciousness, where she could run it away—if she ran fast enough—but every now and then it came to the surface, where it was impossible to ignore. She felt tears begin to well, which was not like her. She’d never been a crier.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “Are you sure?”

  Through his glasses Nigel’s eyes looked larger and more knowing. It scared her. But what could she say? There’s something I have to tell you. And it’s big. It’s really, really big.

  “I’m sure.” She shut Ava’s door firmly. “Come on, let’s make dinner.”

  5

  “Morning, Fran!” Isabelle called out from across the street.

  One of the worst things about Pleasant Court was that it seemed to be inhabited entirely by morning people. Admittedly Fran got up early too, but it was out of necessity rather than choice—not to mention it was with considerably less cheer than everyone else on the street. The fact was, as a mother of two, if she wanted to exercise she was forced to get up with the birds. She thought she’d perfected the art of avoiding the incessant calling-out of “Morning!” by scuttling out at 6:10 A.M.—eyes down, hoodie up, earplugs in. Until now.

  “Hi, Isabelle,” she called without breaking stride. She lifted her hand, keeping her eyes in front. Isabelle seemed nice enough, but it was important to set clear boundaries from the start. (Nigel was fond of telling her she had social phobias, but it wasn’t true. It wasn’t that she was afraid of people. She just didn’t like them before 7 A.M.)

  “You must be one of those morning people,” Isabelle called.

  Fran glanced from the footpath to Isabelle and back again, biting back an urge to scream. Would it be rude to keep jogging now? She could pretend she hadn’t heard, or that she thought Isabelle had been talking to someone else. Or she could just be the rude neighbor who didn’t talk to people. Fran could live with being that neighbor, she decided.

  The funny thing was, Fran would never have picked Isabelle to be a morning person. Or the type to engage in neighborly banter, for that matter. Fran had her pegged as the inner-city apartment type who rode a pushbike in an ironic way and befriended the local homeless man rather than her actual neighbors. The type who took her coffee very seriously and frequented vegan cafes where you paid what you thought your food was worth. But perhaps Fran had her all wrong.

  “I guess you have to be a morning person when you have kids,” Isabelle said, walking over. Fran realized she’d hesitated too long. “Too much to do, not enough time, am I right?” She stopped in front of Fran, resting her elbow against the Larritts’ letter box. She had this cool, casual thing going on that seemed out of step with Pleasant Court. It made Fran feel suddenly uptight. “I don’t know how you fit everything in. You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?’

  Suddenly Fran understood. Isabelle was looking for free legal advice. At least now she understood. She’d got herself involved in something—a fence dispute, a sexual harassment complaint, some problem with her rental that hadn’t been resolved swiftly enough by the landlord. Everyone always had a legal issue, it seemed. And they were always so confused when Fran suggested they get advice from a lawyer specialising in that particular field. (But you’re a lawyer, they always said, baffled.)

  “I’m a mergers and acquisitions lawyer,” Fran said, cutting her off at the pass. “Pretty specialized stuff. And I’m on maternity leave right now so…’

  “Yes,
I noticed you had a newborn.” Isabelle smiled. “Congratulations. Where is she this morning?’

  Fran paused. So, perhaps not the legal advice then. “She’s … still asleep. Her dad is home.”

  “And her name’s Ava?”

  “Er … yes.”

  Fran felt off-kilter. It was too early. She couldn’t figure out if she was having a lovely chat with the new neighbor or being very pleasantly interrogated. Usually she prided herself on being able to judge people’s intentions.

  But it was 6:10 A.M.

  “Morning, ladies.”

  Fran glanced over at Ange’s place where Lucas stood on the front lawn, pushing a garbage bag into an over-full bin. “Up and about early, today I see,” he said.

  Fran waved vaguely at Lucas, who didn’t appear to be waiting for a response. “Well, I’d better keep moving,” she said to Isabelle, aware that any minute now Ange would be outside wanting to chat about the neighborhood watch or some such horror. Fran turned her back and started walking.

  “It feels like every time I see you, you’ve been running,” Isabelle called after her. “It’s very impressive.”

  “Well,” Fran said over her shoulder, “I need to lose the baby weight, so—”

  “But you aren’t carrying any baby weight,” Isabelle said. Her voice wasn’t loud but it carried in the quiet of the early morning. Fran reached for her earplugs and was about to bury them in her ears when Isabelle added: “In fact, you don’t look like you’ve had a baby at all.”

  * * *

  Nigel’s depression lasted a year. It felt to Fran like a betrayal. As ridiculous as it sounded, she’d always believed Nigel was too sensible to get depressed. She had assumed that if he started to feel down he’d simply go see his family doctor about addressing the chemical imbalance in his brain. He’d have been given a list of instructions to follow—take antidepressants, exercise, and stop drinking alcohol.

  Instead, alcohol became the worst part.

  Nigel had never been much of a drinker. In the old days he’d had only one drink a week, on a Friday, and it was for the ritual more than anything else. He’d come home from work, open a beer and sit in his chair with a soft “Ah” noise. Often he didn’t even finish the beer.