The Family Next Door

by Sally Hepworth

  After dinner, they bathed the girls. Then Ange sat on the couch feeding Polly a bottle while Lucas played trains on the floor with Mia.

  “Thanks for helping,” she said to him.

  He smiled at her. “It reminds me of when the boys were little.”

  “Me too.”

  Mia rammed a train into Lucas’s foot. “Oww,” he said, theatrically, rolling around while Mia chortled. “A train ran over my foot!”

  “I don’t suppose you get to do this with Charlie very often,” Ange said.

  Lucas glanced over, still holding his foot and pretending to wince. He raised his eyebrows. “Sorry?”

  “Erin’s little girl?” Ange continued. “Your daughter?”

  Mia rammed Lucas’s foot again, but this time he didn’t react. Frustrated, she tried again. And again. Ange scanned Lucas’s face for confusion or bewilderment, but it wasn’t there. All that was there was understanding.

  “How did you know?” he said.

  Finally the tears she’d been waiting for welled up in her eyes. “I know,” she said, “because you just told me.”

  39

  ISABELLE

  When Isabelle opened her eyes the next morning, Jules was beside her, fast asleep. Until that very moment, Isabelle hadn’t been aware of how much she’d missed the weight of his body beside her, his slightly woodsy, minty scent. She basked it in for a moment until everything came flooding back.

  She jerked upright and reached for her phone. She’d texted Essie twice last night. Even though she hadn’t been optimistic for a response, she was disappointed to find no messages. If she’d had Ben’s number, she would have called him but she didn’t. And since she had no intention of talking to Barbara, it left her out of options.

  Jules opened his eyes all at once, without a single stir or yawn. He always woke like this, and it was always unnerving. He frowned. “You okay?”

  “No, I’m not,” she said, jumping out of bed.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need to see Essie,” she replied, and headed for the shower.

  40

  ESSIE

  Essie had been in Summit Oaks for two nights and there hadn’t been any mention of a release date. It was fine by her. She was nuts, after all. A married, mother of two, becoming obsessed with a female neighbor? Spying on her from the side of her house like a stalker? It was like a Jerry Springer episode. Everyone agreed she’d had “another postpartum episode,” and the humiliation of this was all encompassing. Another one? Was it not enough that she had dumped her first baby in the park, but now she’d had a complete mental breakdown after her second?

  The medication helped keep thoughts at bay. Thoughts of … what would it be like when she had to face Isabelle? It was hard enough to face Ben. She’d thought he would be angry with her, horrified and embarrassed, but he wasn’t. He’d been at her bedside every moment he wasn’t with the kids. As far as she knew he hadn’t been to work in days. If her mum hadn’t begged him to go home and be with the girls, she suspected he’d have spent the nights on the floor of her hospital room as well.

  Ange had phoned and so had Fran. Essie was touched, even though she couldn’t bring herself to speak to them. She knew she’d have to face everyone eventually, but for now, she was happy to remain in foggy, drugged-out world where reality didn’t exist. Essie’s mum was the only one she’d speak to, besides Ben. She sat in Essie’s room now, flipping through a magazine. For the last two days, she and Ben had tag-teamed, either at the hospital or looking after the girls. In her typical style, her mum didn’t ask anything of Essie. She brought magazines or snacks, and then sat by the window, refolding Essie’s clothes and throwing out wrappers from candy bars she’d eaten. Making things right again. Essie knew she had lucked out in the mother department, but what about Mia and Polly? Who would make things right for them?

  Essie began to get tired—a combination of the medication and the depression. Even as she started to drift off, she sensed her mother’s movements. She was grabbing her purse from the table, rummaging for her keys, checking for her sunglasses on her head, looking around to see if there was anything else she could do before she left—anything else she could give. Her lips brushed Essie’s forehead and then the door gently closed.

  A few minutes later Essie heard a nurse come in. She waited for the scrape of the chart lifting from the end of the bed, the filling of the water jug, the scrawl of a pen against paper—but she didn’t hear them. Even the soles of her shoes on the floor sounded wrong, more of a clack than a squeak.

  Essie opened her eyes.

  “Did I wake you?”

  Isabelle stood at the end of the bed, looking down at her with a tentative smile. Her hands were clasped together in front and she looked nervous, which Essie found odd. What did she have to be nervous about? She wasn’t the one who’d humiliated herself. Unless … maybe she was worried that Essie might do something crazy again?

  “I’m sorry to show up like this,” Isabelle said, “I just … needed to see you. After the other night, I was worried.”

  Essie struggled to her elbows, then sat up. Despite the circumstances, Essie couldn’t deny she was happy to see Isabelle, if very sheepish. “You were worried? About your crazy neighbor?”

  “You’re not crazy, Essie.”

  “With all due respect, you haven’t been inside my mind for the last few weeks. You haven’t heard my thoughts.”

  Isabelle pulled up a chair and sat. “That’s true. And actually, I was hoping you would share those thoughts with me. If you’d humor me, I’d really like to know.”

  “Trust me, you don’t.”

  “Trust me, I do.”

  They locked eyes. It seemed, despite all odds, that she did want to know. Essie didn’t understand why, but she also didn’t have much to lose. She’d already spied on Isabelle through the window of her house. How much worse could it get?

  “Fine. When I wake up, I’m thinking about you. When I go to sleep, I’m thinking about you. I think about kissing you and touching you. I love you. I feel like if I lost you, I’d be like a sieve, full of holes, and everything that is good would leach away. I … I’m obsessed with you, Isabelle.”

  She snuck a look at Isabelle, and was surprised to find her nodding. She slid her chair a little closer to Essie. “What if I told you that everything you just described made absolute sense?”

  Essie laughed once, a “pah” of ridiculousness. “I’d say you were crazy.”

  “And I’d say I’m not crazy,” Isabelle said. “I’m your sister.”

  I left the hospital that afternoon. I wasn’t in any position to argue. I’d feel much better once I was at home, I told myself, though I’d miss the medication. The ward was busy so I packed my own bag, ready for discharge. I waited in my room for a while, but when no one came to see me I just left. And then I was going down in the elevator and headed for the taxi stand. Going home.

  Except something was wrong.

  What was it? It felt like I was missing something, but I had it all—bag, purse, keys. I must have laughed when I realized.

  My baby! I’d forgotten my baby.

  I turned around and walked back into the hospital. A nurse glanced up when I came back inside. She was on the phone, busy, so I pointed at my room and kept walking. I found you right there in the hallway, still in your wheely-crib. A pang of fear went through me. They’d found you. Could I get reported for this? Would children’s services come beating down my door? I could already read the headline: NEW MOTHER FORGETS HER BABY.

  I wasn’t thinking rationally, of course. It was the medication. Surely they wouldn’t report me? Mothers were often disoriented after having their babies, it probably happened all the time. Still, I didn’t see the need to draw any more attention to my mistake. So I just gently lifted you from your crib and took you downstairs to the waiting cab.

  41

  ISABELLE

  “What do you mean you’re my sister?” Essie said. />
  Isabelle was shaking. She’d been waiting for this moment since she was eight years old, but now it was here, she felt the enormity of it like a boulder on her shoulders. She moved to Essie’s bedside, twisting the bedcovers in her nervous fingers. “I know it sounds crazy, but you were nineteen days old when you were abducted from the Royal Sydney Hospital. Your name is Sophie. Sophie Heatherington.”

  “I don’t understand,” Essie said. “Why do you think I am Sophie?”

  Essie sat up straight, pulling her knees up in front of her. Her eyes were wide and interested—she was obviously curious, but a long way from believing she had a role in it.

  “I saw you on the news when there was the fire in Pleasant Court and I nearly fainted,” Isabelle said. “You look exactly like my mum. Exactly. I may have only had nineteen days with you, but I was eight and you were my baby sister. I remember everything about you. The shape of your nose, the color of your skin. Your eyes—one brown and one blue.”

  Mention of her eyes caused the slightest flicker of uncertainty in Essie. “But … I’m not the only person with a birthmark in my eye.”

  “That’s true. And I’ve had a false alarm before—a girl from Adelaide with a birthmark in her eye. But this time, it was more than just the birthmark. After Sophie was taken, Mum and I trawled the newspaper announcements for weeks. We tried to get the police to follow up on all the people who announced the births of baby girls in Sydney in the week after Sophie was taken. When I saw your name on the news after the fire I knew there was something familiar about it. I double-checked and sure enough there was a birth notice for Esther Walker in the newspaper three days after Sophie was taken. It wasn’t proof, but I was convinced enough to try and find out more. So I took a leave of absence from my job and moved to Melbourne. The goal was to try and get some DNA, but I didn’t know how to get it from you so I took some of Mia’s hair. I did a DNA test. Our kinship index is greater than one point zero, which means Mia and I share DNA.”

  Isabelle held out the document to Essie.

  “You took Mia’s hair?”

  “Read the document, Essie,” Isabelle said, more determined now. Now she’d started this, there was no going back. She needed to make Essie understand this, or she’d lose her all over again.

  Essie glanced at the document briefly, then waved it away. “I don’t understand this … what does it mean?”

  “It means Mia is my niece.”

  “No. No, that can’t be right. I don’t believe you.”

  “You don’t have to believe me,” Isabelle said. She stabbed a finger at the papers between them on the bed. “This is proof.”

  Essie glanced down at the document again, keeping her distance as though it could infect her with something.

  “What’s your birthdate, Essie?” Isabelle asked gently.

  “June tenth.”

  “Is that what it says on your birth certificate?” Essie handed the document back.

  “I don’t have a birth certificate. But if I did, that’s what it would say.”

  “Why don’t you have a birth certificate?”

  “I don’t need one. I’m a homebody. I hardly want to leave the house, let alone the country.”

  Isabelle watched her steadily. Essie rolled her eyes.

  “Okay,” she said. “Then for the sake of argument, how did this happen? How did I end up with my mum instead of yours?”

  “You weren’t well,” Isabelle started. Her mind drifted back to the day she came home from school and found Sophie screaming. It was a shock after the quiet, content baby she’d been for the previous few weeks.

  “I’m taking her to the hospital,” Isabelle’s mum had said. “She has a fever.”

  Isabelle had wanted to go to the hospital too, but instead she and Freddy were sent to a neighbor’s house. A few hours later when their dad collected them, her mum and Sophie still weren’t home. They were staying the night at the hospital, her dad told them.

  The next day, Isabelle’s dad picked her up from school. The phone was ringing when they arrived home and Isabelle and Freddy ran to answer it. Isabelle got there first.

  “Hello?”

  “Izzy, it’s Mum. Can I speak to Dad?”

  “Mom! How’s Sophie?”

  “Just put Dad on the phone,” she said.

  Her mum sounded different. Sophie must have gotten worse, Isabelle thought. As she handed the phone to her dad, she got a funny feeling in her belly.

  “Hi, Linda,” her dad said. A split second later, his brow became furrowed. “What? What do you mean?”

  He began blinking rapidly. He was still holding Isabelle’s schoolbag with one hand and gripping the phone with the other. His knuckles became white. “Where was Sophie while you were sleeping in the nurses station? Well, check again. Find the nurse. I’m not yelling, I’m just…”

  Isabelle got scared then. Her dad was calm, jolly. He wasn’t one to yell or get flustered. “I don’t care if she’s off-shift. Why are you asking me? Okay, I’m coming now.”

  Her dad walked straight to the door. He was still holding Isabelle’s schoolbag. Isabelle and Freddy hurried after him. They didn’t speak a word on the way to the hospital. There was already a policeman there when they arrived and that’s when Isabelle realized how serious it was.

  “You were in the hospital and someone took you from your crib while our mum was sleeping,” Isabelle said to Essie. “We never saw you again.”

  It was such a simple ending to the story, though not an entirely accurate one. Because it wasn’t the end of the story. After Sophie’s disappearance life became a whirlwind for the Heatheringtons—doing press conferences, putting up posters, endless meetings with the police and people who worked for missing children foundations. People shuttled Isabelle and her brother to school and activities to help them maintain “a sense of normalcy”—as if that were possible. After a few months the counseling started—family counseling—which was basically putting them all in a room together to watch her mother cry while her father, dry-eyed, patted her back. The counseling had been horrible. But when things had started going back to normal—that was worse.

  After six months, Isabelle’s mum packed up Sophie’s bassinet. Isabelle tried to stop her, but she explained, “Sophie won’t need it anymore. She’s too big. She needs a crib.” That had made sense to Isabelle. Her father had begged her mother, “No, don’t put up the crib.” They’d had a fight. But her mother put it up anyway, while Isabelle sat on the floor and handed her tools. (Her mum wasn’t handy. It took them all night to put up that crib.)

  They put her toddler bed together when she would have been three. Isabelle’s dad had left by then. Isabelle and her mum celebrated every birthday. Freddy went along with it, but like her dad, he seemed to have moved on in a way Isabelle and her mother couldn’t. When they went on vacation, they brought something back for Sophie, so she’d have a memento of what she’d missed. The family photos they took somehow held a space where Sophie should have been. They talked about her as if she would come back one day. For years, Isabelle believed she would.

  Isabelle lost her mum to cancer when she was twenty. After that, Isabelle was the only one still looking for Sophie. Everyone else had moved on.

  Essie was staring at her.

  “You’re not crazy, Essie,” Isabelle told her.

  “Really?” Essie said. “If what you’re saying is true, it’s worse. It means I’ve fallen in love with my own sister!” Essie laughed loudly, but Isabelle heard a note of uncertainty in it.

  Isabelle took a breath. She hadn’t wanted to get into this part so soon. “Actually, that part even makes sense. Have you heard of genetic sexual attraction?”

  Essie blinked, her smile sliding off her face. “Have I heard of what?”

  “Genetic sexual attraction is an attraction that can happen between relatives who meet as adults. It is most common between a birth mother and an adult child who was adopted out as a baby. It also can happen between sibl
ings who were conceived by the same sperm donor or separated at birth.”

  “Sorry … what?”

  “The other night, when you looked at me like you were in love with me? That is classic behavior of someone experiencing genetic sexual attraction. You were feeling something toward me that you couldn’t put your finger on, so you read it as attraction. Essie, I know this is a huge shock, but does this make even the slightest bit of sense to you?”

  Essie glanced down at the DNA results again. “How did you do this?” she asked softly.

  “The DNA test? Well, it was one of those—”

  “—one of those online tests that are advertised on TV? Seven ninety-nine for peace of mind? Guaranteed test results in fourteen days?” She looked up. Her eyes were wild and disbelieving. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  Isabelle had known she’d get pushback from Essie. She was prepared for it. She was unprepared for the situation to be turned around on her.

  “I didn’t do it to you. Barbara did. Barbara kidnapped you, Essie.”

  Essie laughed. “Have you met my mother? Does she seem like a kidnapper?”

  “Actually, yes. She fits the profile of a baby snatcher exactly.”

  Essie paused. Clearly, she hadn’t expected that. “In what way does she fit the profile of a baby snatcher?” Essie’s chin was held high, disbelieving, but she was listening. It was, Isabelle figured, the best she could hope for.

  “For one thing, she looks nothing like you. For another, she moved you both away from Sydney when you were a newborn and you have no contact with her friends or family. You have no father in the picture. Often women take babies to hold on to a man but it rarely works. They usually end up alone in a codependent relationship with the child, exactly like you and Barbara are.”