The Family Next Door

by Sally Hepworth

  Barbara put down her tea. “Does she seem okay to you?”

  Ben’s breathing had softened. He must have slowed to a walk. “More or less. I mean, she’s obsessed with Polly’s sleep patterns at the moment and is constantly on Google looking for solutions. But that’s normal, right, for a mum of a new baby?’

  Barbara had no idea what was normal these days. When Essie was a baby there was no Google, no sleep trainers. If you had a baby that was crying, you just had to deal with it.

  “I don’t know, Ben.”

  He was silent for a moment. It occurred to Barbara that it was one of the only times Ben was serious—when he was talking about Essie.

  “Spend some more time with her,” Barbara said finally, decisively. “Come home earlier and help out with the girls as much as you can. I’ll do the same. If anything changes, let me know.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Good plan. Talk to you later.”

  “Talk to you later,” Barbara replied and hung up.

  It wasn’t exactly worrying, what Ben had said, yet Barbara had a bad feeling. Things had gone downhill quickly last time, and this time she needed to pay attention. She was a mother, after all.

  It was a mother’s duty to worry.

  11

  ESSIE

  In Pleasant Court, mornings were busy. People going to work, doing the school run. Kids riding bikes, adults jogging. Essie raced by them all as she ran out of the house with Polly on her hip, a box of muffins under her arm, and Mia’s lunch box in her hand. It wasn’t even 8 A.M., and you could feel the day’s heat building.

  “Ben,” Essie called, flagging him down in the bulb of the cul-de-sac. “Mia’s lunch box!”

  She handed it to him through the open car window while Mia waved from the backseat. She went to kindergarten for three-year-olds two and a half days a week, and Ben dropped her off (something he dropped into conversation to anyone who’d listen). It would have been wonderful if only he didn’t always forget everything Mia needed. Most days Essie found herself driving up to the kindergarten later in the day to drop off her hat, her blanket, her water bottle. When she told Ben about it he always looked suitably chastened, but that didn’t make her life any easier.

  “Essie.” Ange was slowly navigating her front steps in very high beige wedges. “Essie! Do you have a minute?”

  “Sure.” Essie hitched Polly up on her hip.

  “I spoke to the people at Neighborhood Watch, Victoria,” Ange said, panting. “They said that once we have recruited as many members as we can, the next step is to schedule a meeting with the local police. We can have it at my place. I was thinking a weeknight. So, we need to ring around the neighbors and … Oh there’s Fran…”

  Fran was coming down the front steps in her running gear.

  “Another run,” Ange muttered. “I swear I saw her head out for a run two hours ago.”

  Fran did seem to have been running a lot. Essie remembered because every time she saw her she felt guilty about not going for a run. Maybe she had an exercise addiction. Or an eating disorder. Maybe she binged on cake and then punished herself by running for hours. She didn’t seem the type, but who really knew? The truth was, despite appearances, she didn’t know much about her neighbors at all.

  “Anyway,” Ange said, “can I count on you to come to the meeting?”

  “Sure,” Essie said.

  “Great. Well, excuse me then, I’ll go ask Fran. Fran!”

  Essie headed up Isabelle’s path. Last night while nursing Polly back to sleep for the fifty-seventh time, Essie had decided she should do something nice to welcome Isabelle to the neighborhood, so first thing this morning she’d baked muffins. What could be more welcoming than muffins? She held the Tupperware container under one arm and Polly in the other as she approached her front door.

  It was a brand-new door, she noticed, with a shiny knocker that seemed too modern for the house. Essie hadn’t been inside since the fire, nearly four months ago. Electrical fire, apparently, started in the roof. The flames had woken Ben. By the time they’d gotten out into the street, half the neighbors were standing outside in their bathrobes. Mrs. Harrap, the previous tenant, was visiting her daughter in Queensland (they knew this for sure because everyone had taken turns watering her plants and collecting her mail) so the neighbors were free to enjoy the drama without fear for human life. It had been exciting actually. Film crews had come down and most of the neighbors had spoken to them, but Essie, for some reason, had gotten major camera time on the six o’clock news (Ange had been devastated). Mrs. Harrap moved in with her daughter after that, and the landlord repaired the damage. A few weeks later, Isabelle moved in.

  Essie was just lifting her hand to knock when the door peeled open.

  “I didn’t even knock!” Essie exclaimed.

  Isabelle smiled. She was makeup-free, dressed in a burgundy oriental robe. Her feet were bare and her toenails were painted a deep purplish-red. “I saw you coming up the path and it looked like you had your hands full. Here, let me help.” She opened her arms and to Essie’s surprise, reached for Polly.

  “Thanks,” Essie said. “Sorry, did I wake you? I wanted to drop these off early because I thought you’d be headed off to work.”

  “I’m not working today. I still have unpacking to do.” Isabelle kept her eyes on Polly, who placed her chubby little hand on Isabelle’s chin. Isabelle flickered her eyes toward the container in Essie’s hands. “What have you got there?”

  “Raspberry and white-chocolate muffins. To welcome you to the neighborhood.”

  “Wow.” Isabelle finally tore her eyes off Polly and reached for the container. “These are still warm. You must have gotten up early this morning to bake these.”

  Essie shrugged. “Well … I have children so I’m always up early.”

  Isabelle’s robe had come undone slightly, she noticed, revealing a narrow line of bare flesh down as far as her belly button. Essie quickly looked away, but she needn’t have bothered because Isabelle had turned her attention back to Polly.

  “She’s sweet,” Isabelle said, clasping one of Polly’s toes between her fingers. Polly rewarded her with a huge gummy smile, which Isabelle returned. Essie watched the interaction, feeling like an outsider. When was the last time Polly had smiled at her like that? Did she ever squeeze Polly’s toes? “I love kids,” Isabelle said. “If you ever need a babysitter, just let me know.”

  “Thanks,” Essie said, though she was surprised. Isabelle didn’t seem the type to go ga-ga over babies. “I’ll tell Ange and Fran. We’re always looking for babysitters around here.”

  “Well, I suppose I should give you your baby back,” Isabelle said, handing Polly back. Her gaze lingered on Essie for a moment. “Your eyes,” she said.

  “Oh,” Essie said. “Yeah. They’re strange.”

  “One blue, one brown?”

  “Both blue.” Essie pointed at her left eye with her free hand. “But this one has a birthmark over it, that’s why it looks brown.”

  Isabelle’s eyes were also blue, Essie noticed, a rich deep color even bluer than her own.

  “I’ll bet you get lots of comments about them.”

  “Some,” Essie said, though in actual fact it was rare that anyone noticed. The odd guy had when she was younger and dating. But since she’d drifted into the married-with-kids “tickbox,” people didn’t tend to notice her at all. It felt nice that Isabelle was noticing now.

  “Well, I guess I’d better keep moving,” Essie said after a long silence. She’d been hoping Isabelle would invite her in. Her own house felt so lonely during the days when Mia was at kindergarten, and Polly always seemed especially grumpy on those days. The neighbors were rarely around on weekdays—Ange worked full time and Fran, as Ange had pointed out, was constantly jogging. Essie’s mum often dropped by to keep her company, but it wasn’t the same as a friend. Essie found herself imagining them making cups of tea together, perhaps even helping Isabelle unpack a few boxes. But Isabelle just
hugged the door, three-quarters closed.

  “Thank you for the muffins,” Isabelle said. She reached again for Polly, this time grasping her little hand. “Bye, Polly.”

  Isabelle closed the door and Essie headed back down the path toward the street. But with her hand on her front door-knob, something occurred to her.

  She’d never told Isabelle her daughter’s name was Polly.

  12

  ISABELLE

  Isabelle sat at her dining room table and peered out the front window. She was still in her bathrobe even though it was early afternoon—it was too damn hot to get dressed and go outside. And so she sat in her front room, doing some people watching.

  There was plenty to see. An hour earlier Ange had pulled up outside her house and run inside carrying a Red Rooster bag, presumably lunch for Ollie, who was home from school with a bright green cast on his arm. Fran had been out for a run twice—twice!—with her kids in the double jogging pram. And ten minutes ago Essie had piled Polly into her car seat and driven off, waving to her mother who was weeding her front garden in a wide-brimmed hat with a floral band.

  So this was what suburbia was like, she thought. Close-knit. Pleasant. People talking to one another, keeping an eye on everyone else’s business (in fact, Isabelle had received a flyer in her letter box about a neighborhood watch meeting tonight at Ange’s house). It was a hard place, you’d imagine, to keep a secret.

  Her phone began to ring.

  Jules, she thought. Isabelle had been thinking about Jules a lot today.

  “Do what you have to do,” Jules had said when Isabelle had explained she was moving to Melbourne. Do what you have to do. She hadn’t given a reason, or any notice. She couldn’t. And Jules let her go anyway, no questions asked.

  On the surface it seemed like a dismissive response, as if Jules didn’t care what she did one way or another. But in fact the opposite was true. Jules cared enough not to ask. It was the reason their relationship worked when so many before had failed. It occurred to Isabelle how lovely that was … and how sad.

  Isabelle glanced at the screen. It wasn’t Jules, it was her father.

  “Dad.”

  “You picked up!” came his booming voice. “I thought I was going to have to file a missing person’s report. Then I hear you’ve up and moved to Melbourne!”

  Isabelle fought the urge to fake a bad connection and hang up. She needed to speak to him sometime or he would file a missing person’s report. “Look, I’m sorry I haven’t gotten in touch with you. I just … needed a change.”

  “Well, I don’t like it,” he said. His voice may have been loud, but she knew he’d be hurt that she’d moved without telling him. She imagined his large, craggy face lined with concern. “I don’t like you being so far away.”

  It was a nice comment, even if she hadn’t seen her father in nearly a year in Sydney. She thought back to Easter last year, when she’d spent the day at his house with her two teenage half-sisters. Her dad had bought them all novelty Easter eggs, which none of them had eaten—her sisters because they were on some sort of diet, and Isabelle because she simply couldn’t stomach watching him beam around the table, saying how marvelous it was to have all his kids together in one room. Isabelle had to remind him that her brother Freddy was spending the holiday with his wife’s family and he didn’t even have the good grace to look sheepish. Her father wasn’t a bad man, but he’d been as good as useless to her and her brother for years.

  “Listen, I just wanted to,” he said, then suddenly, his voice went far away and Isabelle heard Rachel, her sixteen-year-old half-sister, talking in the background. “What is it? Oh. Izzy, hang on a sec, would you? What is it, honey?”

  Isabelle closed her eyes and banged her head softly against the table.

  “The iPad’s not working,” Rachel said in a whiney, obnoxious voice.

  Isabelle tried to remember whether she’d spoken to her dad like that when she was sixteen. It was unlikely since when Isabelle was sixteen her parents were divorced and she was a guest in her dad’s home.

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” he said to Rachel. “I’m talking to Isabelle. Do you want to say hi?”

  Isabelle heard the phone being passed through air and pictured Rachel wildly shaking her hands, mouthing “Noooo!” while her dad, oblivious, smiled.

  “Hi, Rach,” Isabelle said.

  “Hi.” She sounded sullen and unenthused. “Now can you fix it, Dad?”

  Isabelle sighed. She knew how this would end. Her dad wanted to be there for Isabelle, but his new family was his priority. He’d made that perfectly clear every time he rang to wish Isabelle a happy birthday a few days late, while the same day posting a Facebook photo of him and her half-sisters on some kind of day trip—to a lake, a mountain, a zoo. Isabelle knew she was far too old to care about being her father’s top priority—for God’s sake, she was nearly forty—but it still managed to irk her. She wondered if the fact that she’d mysteriously moved to Melbourne would make a difference. Maybe this time he’d tell Rachel, Sorry, but the iPad will have to wait. I’m talking to Isabelle.

  “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” he asked her.

  Isabelle glanced at the window. Fran was out there again, putting Ava and Rosie into the jogging stroller. Surely she wasn’t running again?

  Through the phone, Isabelle heard her sister let out a high-pitched noise that sounded more animal than human. “Dad!!!!!”

  “Izzy, do you mind if I call you back later? I’ll call from work tomorrow and then we’ll have no interruptions.”

  “Sure,” she murmured. Fran did appear to be running for the third time today. Crazy lady. Essie pulled into the street and gave her a wave. Did no one else notice that that woman had some sort of exercise addiction?

  “But Izzy?”

  “Yes, Dad?”

  A pause. “You’re all right, aren’t you? You’d tell me if you weren’t all right…”

  It was so typical of her dad, waiting until the last moment to tell her why he was really phoning. He always did that when he didn’t really want to know the answer. As such, she didn’t see the point of telling him the truth.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Thanks for calling.”

  She hung up, still looking out the window. Essie was attempting to unstrap Polly from her car seat while Mia stood by her side, clutching a pair of binoculars made from toilet rolls. This could have been her life, Isabelle realized. It could have been her jogging obsessively or wrangling kids or bringing her kid lunch when he had a broken arm. Instead she was a spectator—a strange woman in a bathrobe, watching through the window.

  But she was going to get her life back. That was exactly what she’d come to Pleasant Court to do.

  “The baby is definitely coming?” I asked the nurse.

  “There’s no stopping it now,” she said, handing me a clipboard. “I just need you to fill in this paperwork so we can admit yo—”

  The next contraction was already here. I’d barely caught my breath from the last one. The nurse put the paperwork on a side table.

  “Are you sure you don’t want someone to contact your husband?” she said.

  My husband. A few weeks back, he’d told me I was acting unhinged. When had he started saying things like that to me? Once, while we were still dating, he’d told me my passion was one of his favorite things about me.

  Now I was unhinged.

  I shook my head.

  “This will all be worth it,” I said a few minutes later, ostensibly to the nurse but really to myself. “Once I have my baby, everything will be all right.”

  The nurse looked at me. I expected a smile, perhaps a reassurance of some description. Instead she gave me a look I’ll never forget.

  13

  ESSIE

  “Can I have ketchup, Mummy?”

  “Sure,” Essie said, squirting a generous dollop onto her plate. “Knock yourself out.”

  It was 6 P.M. and the neighborhood watch me
eting at Ange’s place was starting any moment. Essie had cooked dinner, stacked the dishwasher, tidied the house somewhat, and now she just needed Ben to get home. Normally Essie’s mum would come over to look after the girls, but tonight she was in bed with a cold so Ben had agreed to come home early and take over. Essie had to admit, she was excited. There was something torturous about the dinner, bath, and bed routine—not least because it had to be done every single day. It had been bad enough with one child, but with two it was relentless.

  Ange and Fran got it, at least.

  “I am suicidal and homicidal every day between five and seven P.M.,” Fran always said, straight-faced. “I wish I was kidding.”

  “Alcohol,” Ange told her sagely. “It’s the only way.”

  Essie suspected Ange was right. She had to admit, the prospect of a glass of wine and a chat was one of the reasons she was looking forward to the neighborhood watch meeting so much. Apart from Ben and her mother (on the phone), Essie hadn’t spoken to another adult all day. And after the impromptu gathering at her house the other day, who knew? Maybe catching up socially would become a regular thing.

  “I’m home,” Ben called from the door. Mia scrambled off her chair and a mere second later Ben had a three-year-old wrapped around his head. “Who turned out the lights?” he cried, flailing about. “Where’s Mia? Why can’t I see anything?”

  He walked into the hall table, knocked over a picture frame and stepped into a basket of clean laundry, leaving a dirty footmark on top of a clean white sheet.

  “Ben!”

  “Sorry.” He winced.

  She picked up the basket and headed for the laundry. Might as well put the wash on so it would be ready to put in the dryer when she got home.

  “I’ll do it,” Ben said. “Really. Just go.” He unwrapped Mia from his head and looked at her earnestly. “I promise, I’ve got this.”

  “Polly’s in the bouncy chair,” she said finally. “I won’t be late.”

  Ange’s house beamed out light from every window. She and Lucas had added a second floor to their bungalow a few years ago, and now a skylight window peeked out of the roofline (Ollie’s room). The garden was perfectly manicured, with green lawn and ornamental pear trees and symmetrical kumquat trees on either side of the front door in terra-cotta pots. Often when she went to Ange’s place, Essie felt like she had arrived in Wisteria Lane.