The Family Next Door

by Sally Hepworth

  Lucas had done the right thing, as Ange knew he would. Josie had disappeared from their lives with an unlikely ease. Lucas had been surprised by Ange’s libido during the month that followed. She remembered him saying as much, when she woke him early one morning, right on the heels of a late evening of lovemaking.

  “Intimacy is important,” she told him, “to get our relationship back on track.”

  Of course he didn’t protest too much. But with a ticking clock at her heels, Ange couldn’t afford to be blasé. She’d remembered hearing women saying things like “I ovulate early” or “I have a long cycle”—things that sounded important to know when you needed to get pregnant in a hurry. But Ange had no idea about her cycle. When she’d been trying to get pregnant the first time around, she’d simply gone off the pill and a couple of months later, voilà! But this time she needed to be smarter about it. She visited the pharmacy and picked up some of those ovulation predictor kits. Every morning she stared at the test window, waiting for an indication that today was a fertile day. On the day a smiley face appeared in the test window, she showed up at Lucas’s studio to surprise him. She remembered trying not to think about the last woman he’d had in there.

  It was that time that had done the trick.

  After an emergency C-section with Will, her obstetrician recommended scheduling an early C-section anyway. And Lucas didn’t pay attention to things like dates, especially the second time around. So, at thirty-seven weeks, when Ange sent Lucas off on a golf trip in Tasmania, he went along happily.

  By the time he got back, they had another son.

  Lucas was disappointed to have missed the birth, of course, but nothing made up for disappointment like a new baby boy.

  Ange had thought everything would go back to normal after that. And admittedly, in the years that followed, there were long periods where she didn’t think at all about what she’d done. But then she’d be sitting at her desk one day, or driving the boys to school, and she’d be hit by a pang of guilt so strong she’d double over. Karma, as it turned out, really was a bitch.

  The studio door opened and Ange sat up on alert. The little girl appeared first running, with Erin running behind her. Lucas held the door, watching them. Ange scrutinized him. He appeared to be fully dressed and he wasn’t showing any outward affection to Erin. Ange’s gaze turned to little Charlie, who was lying on the grass now, her T-shirt riding up as Erin tickled her. Her legs kicked. Get your camera, Lucas, Ange thought. This is the money shot. But Lucas’s camera was nowhere to be seen. He just watched them thoughtfully from the doorway. There was a softness to his expression that was a knife in Ange’s stomach. She became aware of her heartbeat; a quiet, urgent hammering. This wasn’t nothing, she realized. This was definitely something.

  Charlie stood now, weary from laughter, but Erin wasn’t finished. She came at her again, fingers outstretched, tickling the air. Charlie shrunk away from her mother, back behind her forearm. There was something familiar about it, Ange realized. It reminded her … of Will.

  Of Lucas.

  Ange’s gaze snapped back to Lucas. His expression was unmistakable now. Soft and fond and bursting with pride. It was the way he looked at Will and Ollie. Ange had always thought it was a look reserved for his …

  She slapped a hand over her mouth.

  No. Vomit rose in her throat, but she forced herself to keep looking, to scour the scene for any evidence that she was right. Because if she was, things weren’t going to blow over this time.

  Things were going to blow up.

  27

  FRAN

  Fran was sprinting so fast she couldn’t hear her thoughts. It was bliss; it was agony. Her throat tasted of something—blood? bile? guilt?—but her legs just kept on pumping. The park was deserted but for a few dog walkers. It was midday and most kids were at home having lunch or taking their afternoon nap, she supposed. Rosie was at home with Nigel and Ava was asleep in her jogger pram, flying up and over the hills. It should have been creepy, being alone with her baby in a deserted park, but Fran found herself wanting to stay here. It was less confusing than being at home.

  She came to a stop at the bottom of a hill and drained the last of her water from the bottle. She had a great affection for this park with its wide expanse of lawn, its huge wooden play-fort for the kids, and its wildly expensive pony rides on Sundays. Most weekends, children’s birthday parties were held by the barbecues. It was the park Rosie referred to as the “wood park” and the one she requested to go to most often. It was also the park where Lucas’s studio was located, and where, three years ago, he’d taken that fabulous photograph of them.

  Three years ago. When things had been good.

  How had she let this happen to them? Nigel had made mistakes too, but his mistakes were out on the table. It was her that was hiding things. The irony was that if she had less of a conscience, everything would have been fine. She would have put it in the past and moved on. Instead, it ate away at her.

  She wandered over to the water fountain to fill her bottle. There was the undeniable fact to consider, of course—they had at least one child together. And Rosie was happy. Fran tried to imagine telling Rosie that Mummy and Daddy weren’t going to be married anymore. Rosie would want to live with Nigel. As the mother, Fran might still get primary physical custody of her, but at what cost? She’d be breaking up Rosie’s life, and her own, to clear her guilty conscience. What kind of mother would that make her?

  But what about in fifteen or twenty years, when Ava found out that the only father she’d ever known wasn’t her father? When she found out her mother had kept the secret all this time?

  What kind of mother would that make her?

  Fran grabbed her stroller and was heading out of the park when the door to Lucas’s studio burst open and a sweet little girl came out, running. Her mother ran after her and tickled the girl until she squealed. Lucas watched them from the doorway smiling—he must have just done a shoot with them. Fran continued walking but pulled up short when she noticed Ange’s car just a few meters away. Ange, it seemed, was also watching the little girl and her mother. There was something about the way she was staring at them that made Fran pause. Her eyes didn’t look right.

  Fran looked back at the woman and the child. At Lucas, smiling over at them. And suddenly, she understood Ange’s outburst earlier.

  Suddenly, she understood it all.

  “Is it a boy or a girl?” I asked.

  The doctor and nurse exchanged a glance.

  “Your baby was a girl,” the doctor said finally.

  I smiled. A girl. I knew it.

  The doctor cleared his throat. “But, as I said, I’m afraid your baby didn’t survive. It was stillborn.”

  Stillborn. I turned the word over in my head. Still. Born.

  I pictured her little face. She’d be wrapped up in a blanket now, probably wearing a little knitted hat. What did she look like? They said all babies’ eyes were blue at first. But would they eventually be brown like mine?

  “Can I see her?” I asked.

  Silence. Then the doctor looked at the nurse. “Have you managed to contact her husband?”

  The nurse shook her head.

  I felt like I might explode. Under my hospital gown, my breasts were tingling. I’d already waited this long. Why were they making me wait longer? “I want to feed her as soon as possible. That’s good for the baby, right?”

  The doctor’s expression baffled me. Did most mothers not want to see their babies? Perhaps they were too exhausted. I found that reassuring. I was a special kind of mother. I wanted my baby more. I loved her more.

  He stood. That’s right, I told him silently. Go get my baby. Finally!

  He walked to the door. The admission paperwork was still on the bedside table, untouched. I couldn’t have cared less about paperwork—I wanted my baby. The anticipation was unbearable. From my bed I could see the doctor in the corridor, talking to the nurse. Another person in a white coat had jo
ined them. I felt like I was in a dream. It must be the drugs. Oh well. If they weren’t going to get my baby, I would.

  I lowered myself gingerly off the bed. I felt the coldness of the floor under my feet, which meant I had some feeling back in my legs. Good. Clutching the metal railing on the side of the bed I hauled myself to standing. There was a hospital-issue robe on a hook on the back of the door. I took a step toward it but all at once the floor came up to greet me, hitting me with a smack. Suddenly the little crowd that had gathered outside my door rushed into the room. I started to shake.

  “Bring me my baby!” I began to scream. “BRING ME MY BABY!”

  I continued shaking and screaming until a needle went into my arm and everything went black.

  28

  ESSIE

  “Mum, it’s me again. Can you call when you have a chance? Thanks so much.”

  Essie hung up. Polly, bleary-eyed, let out a sob of exhaustion.

  “Go to sleep if you’re so tired,” Essie begged.

  She might have been imagining it, but it looked like Polly was steeling her jaw, saying, Oh yeah, try me.

  Essie’s baby book said Polly should have been having three naps per day, each an hour to two hours long. Two hours! It was like the book was just trying to taunt new mothers, make them suffer. For the last week, Polly hadn’t slept more than twenty minutes at a time during the day, and today, she hadn’t slept a wink. To add insult to injury, Mia had decided to decline her afternoon nap as well and had just had a huge meltdown because Essie had given her pasta for lunch and she “hated pasta.” (She did not hate pasta. Two days ago she’d declared that she wanted spaghetti for breakfast because it was just sooooo good.) Now Mia was watching cartoons and Polly was attached to her hip, a pathetic, sobbing mess. Meanwhile, all Essie wanted was to eat a bowl of pasta and go to sleep.

  Essie walked to the front window and looked out. Her mum’s car wasn’t in her driveway. Where on earth was she? For the past week, she had been around constantly, staying all day and only leaving when Ben arrived home at night. But today, she was nowhere to be found. Rationally, Essie knew it wasn’t reasonable to expect her mum to be available every time she needed her, but Essie wasn’t feeling logical right now. All Essie wanted was for her mum to arrive on her doorstep and put both girls (and Essie) to bed. Then, in an hour or two, she wanted to wake up to find the laundry done and dinner on the stove.

  Was that so much to ask?

  It was just that her mum was such a natural mother and grandmother. Once upon a time, Essie had thought she would be a natural mother. The first time had clearly been a disaster, but this time, she’d had higher hopes for herself.

  So much for that.

  Essie had already left a couple of messages for Ben, even though she knew he had a busy day at work today. She was looking for a sympathetic ear, but all she got was his answering machine. She sat on the couch and tried to breast-feed Polly to sleep (again). Through the window she could see her mum’s driveway, so she’d know the moment her mum got home.

  “Mummy!” Mia whined, pointing to the TV. “It’s finished.”

  “Something else will come on in a minute,” Essie said tiredly.

  “What will come on?”

  Essie tried to remember what day it was. On Monday and Tuesdays Peppa Pig was up next, on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday it was Sesame Street. Essie was shamefully aware of which kid shows were on which day, just not so great at remembering what day it actually was. She thought hard.

  It was … Thursday.

  Shit. Her mum went to the movies with Lois on Thursdays. So that’s where she was. Essie felt a shameful wave of jealousy. Sometimes, when she had a moment to herself, Essie would fantasize about being retired. The endless, empty calendar filled with whatever she wanted. Sleep, evenings out, movies. She could take up a hobby, go on vacation somewhere that wasn’t kid-friendly. Go to the theater. Stay up all night reading, and then sleep it off the next day. Her mum was constantly doing that. She’d come over to Essie’s midmorning and hand her a thick novel that she’d stayed up all night to finish. “You must read it,” she’d exclaim. Essie would stare at it as if it was a foreign body. Read? An actual book (and not about parenting)? When was she supposed to do that?

  “Sesame Street is on,” Essie told Mia, and she promptly started to wail again. Essie felt like wailing herself.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Essie shimmied from her chair, with Polly still attached to her breast (but utterly and irretrievably awake). As she wandered over to the door, Essie wondered if giving her a shot of whisky, like they did in the old days, really was such a bad idea.

  “Hi,” Isabelle said, when Essie threw open the door. Then her face fell. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m … yes, well, I’m … it’s just that…”

  Essie found herself unable to finish the sentence. The words she needed had momentarily (or perhaps permanently) left her, and all the alternative words seemed to be mushed and jumbled and running together. In the meantime, Polly had unlatched and was smiling gummily at Isabelle while milk leaked through Essie’s shirt. Mia was throwing a fit to the Sesame Street theme song.

  “Give her to me,” Isabelle said, taking Polly and shutting the door behind her. Mia, seeing they had company, quieted down and stared at Isabelle.

  “Don’t like Sesame Street?” Isabelle asked Mia.

  “The bird,” Mia said. “He’s too big.”

  “Big Bird?” Isabelle said. “I know what you mean. No bird is that big in real life. Quite frankly, it’s ridiculous.”

  Mia nodded seriously.

  ‘Tell you what, why don’t we put a movie on instead?’

  Essie went and changed her shirt. By the time she got back Isabelle and Mia were on the floor and Mia was telling her that Big Bird was even taller than her daddy who was really tall and wasn’t that silly? Also yellow wasn’t her favorite color, it was her third favorite after pink and purple and sometimes green. Amazingly, Isabelle managed to follow the conversation as well as provide meaningful commentary, put on the movie (The Little Mermaid) and stop the meltdown all while holding Polly in her lap. Polly, newly animated by the surprise guest, had lost any trace of drowsiness brought on by the breast-feeding, but watching them, Essie found it hard to be upset.

  “Shouldn’t you be at work?” Essie asked.

  Isabelle was dressed in skinny black jeans and a racer-back white tank that didn’t look very workish. Her bra was black, and a single lacy strap crept up her spine and split into two at her nape.

  “I took the day off,” Isabelle told her. “And lucky I did. You look like you could use some help.”

  Essie fell onto the couch. “I do. Not that you can tell now. Clearly you have a gift with my children.” She gestured to Mia who sat so close to Isabelle she was practically on her lap.

  Isabelle smiled. “Your mum isn’t around today?”

  “She’s at the movies! Can you believe her?”

  “The gall!”

  “I know, right?”

  Essie giggled, then sighed. “The wheels have just fallen off today. It’s Polly, mostly. She used to be my dream baby and now … well, she’s decided to develop a backbone like her sister. I don’t know where they get it from. Neither Ben nor I have backbones.” She giggled again. She was delirious, clearly.

  “So Mia wasn’t a dream baby?”

  Essie shrugged. “It was me, really. The fact is, Mia could have been the most wonderful baby in the world and I wouldn’t have appreciated it.”

  Isabelle laid a hand over Essie’s, giving it a short squeeze. Essie felt an unexpected, deep sense of peace.

  “How are you coping this time?” Isabelle asked.

  “Okay, I guess. I mean, when I look at the girls I feel love. Mostly love. Love, mixed with exhaustion and a little irritation.”

  “A little” may have been understating it. In fact, an hour ago, when Polly remained awake despite forty minutes of patting, Es
sie had just about cried. Go to fucking sleep! she’d shrieked in her mind. At the same time she’d had a lot of uncharitable thoughts about her mother. Shut up about back patting. It doesn’t work! Unless I missed the step when you slip her a mild sedative before patting.

  She must have left her mum a dozen voice messages today. She’d called Ben several times as well, demanding to know the exact time he would be home. When he’d made a joke about being thirty seconds late, she didn’t laugh.

  “It’s hard work being a mum,” Isabelle said. “Everyone struggles from time to time.”

  Essie yawned. “I guess so.”

  “Look, why don’t you have a sleep? I’m happy to stay here with the girls. I don’t have any plans this afternoon.”

  Essie reached out and grabbed both of Isabelle’s hands. The idea of having a nap was impossibly appealing, but doing it while Isabelle remained in the house was, for some reason, nicer still.

  “Don’t say that if you don’t mean it. It’s very dangerous playing games with a desperate, overtired mother.” Essie hoped she sounded funny and charming rather than psychotic.

  Isabelle withdrew her hand and laid it over her heart. “I mean it. I’m happy to hang out here for a few hours. You look like you need the rest.”

  “This is the part when I’m supposed to refuse, right? Tell you I have everything under control and offer you a cup of tea? Well, I’m not going to. Do you understand that?”

  “I do,” Isabelle said solemnly. She looked like she was about to crack a smile but before she had the chance Essie lunged forward, gathering her into a hug. “I think I may actually love you,” Essie said, then she raced off to her bedroom and slammed the door.

  * * *

  When Essie opened her eyes, Ben was leaning over her.

  “Oh, hello,” she said sleepily. She rubbed her eyes. Ben looked … strange. His mouth was pulled tight and his eyeballs were flying back and forth.

  “Essie, where are the girls?” he demanded.

  She blinked a couple of times, then sat up quickly. Where were the girls? She tried to think. Her brain wasn’t awake yet.