“—that marriage was hard, but you had to work harder?”
“Yes.”
She watched Nigel’s face. He’d never liked her mother. Fran had always defended her to him, saying she means well, and she’s a product of her upbringing.
“Did she say that high achievers don’t get divorced?”
“More or less.”
“And what did you say?”
“I told her that contrary to her opinion, high achievers regularly analyze complex problems and make judgment calls based on the evidence they have and the probable outcomes.”
Fran stifled a smile. It was such a Nigel response she couldn’t help but love it. But it also made her nervous. Nigel had spent the last few days analyzing their relationship. What would his judgment call be?
“So,” she said. “What have you deduced in this case?”
Before he could respond the doctor walked into the room and they both rose to their feet.
62
ESSIE
Ben answered the door. It wasn’t the way Essie had planned it, but then again, she’d changed her mind approximately 5,687 times in the past week. Isabelle had also offered to answer the door—which wasn’t a ridiculous idea since it was her father and brother out there—but once she’d heard the knock, Essie had grabbed her arm and held her firm.
It was all confirmed now. Essie and Isabelle had both had cheek swabs done which proved they were indeed biological sisters. Essie could just about get her head around that part, but now she had other family members to meet. Family members who were currently at her door.
“Hello! I’m Ben,” she heard Ben say in a loud, overfriendly voice that gave away the fact that he was nervous too. Mia stood behind his legs, shyly.
“I’m Graham, and this is my son Freddy,” came a booming, grandfatherly voice. Essie couldn’t see them from where she sat but she pictured them shaking hands.
“Nice to meet you,” Ben said. “This is Mia.”
“Well, well,” said the voice. “Aren’t you beautiful!”
Essie stood as a profile view of her father came into view. He was tall, with thick gray hair and a paunchy belly. Beside him was a man who looked very much like him, except his hair was mostly black and his stomach was flat. Both of them looked at Mia with an expression Essie could only describe as wonder. Then the younger man looked around the room, his gaze landing on Essie.
He gasped. “Dad…”
The old man followed his son’s gaze. They had the same face, Essie noticed, father and son. The same jaw, the same chin. The same eyes, pale blue, starting to mist over in unison. If Barbara was here, Essie mused, she’d be racing around, making more tea than anyone could drink. She’d be warm and friendly and she’d whisk the children away so everyone could catch up properly. But of course, Barbara would never be here. Even if she wasn’t in the hospital. She was the woman who’d stolen her.
Essie had gotten the call this morning. Barbara had woken up after a week of being unconscious. She had a broken hip, three fractured ribs, and a partially collapsed lung, and while secondary brain injury was still a possibility, she was showing no signs of brain swelling or bleeding. The police said it was lucky she hadn’t been pulled underneath the tram. If not for that, she likely wouldn’t have made it. Essie had wanted to go to the hospital immediately after she’d heard her mother was conscious. She’d wanted to go with the same ferocity as she’d wanted to stay away. Part of her, she realized, was afraid to see her mother. Afraid to ask the questions she needed to ask. Afraid of hearing the answers to those questions.
It was Ben, in the end, who’d helped her decide. (Your father and brother are on their way, he’d said. They’ve waited a long time to see you. Don’t make them wait any longer.)
“Sophie,” her father whispered.
Essie made herself smile. She walked over and held out a stiff hand to him. “I’m Esther,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Her father looked at her hand for a moment. Then he scanned her face, from right to left, top to bottom, as if memorizing it. Maybe he was. He touched the ends of her hair, turning it over in his hand. Finally he pulled her into a hug.
“Hello, honey,” he said to Isabelle over Essie’s shoulder. He kept one arm around Essie and put the other around Isabelle. Then he smiled warmly down at them both. “I never thought I’d see this day. My two daughters.”
Essie recalled that her father had another two daughters. Four, in total. She felt irrationally glad that he’d forgotten them in this moment, and she suspected, judging from Isabelle’s face, that she was glad too.
He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “I just wish your mother was here.”
“I’m Fred,” the other man—her brother—said. He hugged her too, but only quickly, then he pulled away again for another look at her. “I’m sorry. I just can’t get over how much you look like Mum. I wish she was here.”
“I do too,” Essie said, though it wasn’t her biological mother she was thinking about.
63
BARBARA
Barbara let the words spin around in her head. Postpartum psychosis. Post-traumatic stress disorder. These were all words the psychiatrists had used to describe Barbara’s psychotic episodes—this one and the one thirty-two years ago when she’d stolen Essie from the hospital. No one was really sure which diagnosis best fit Barbara’s experience—these things were rarely clear-cut, they said. In short, the trauma of her stillbirth had caused her to block out her baby’s death, and Isabelle’s confrontation had brought it back. She knew she would never in her right mind have stolen a baby. She had believed Essie was hers. Even now, knowing the truth, it was hard to believe Essie wasn’t hers.
The hospital had taken a cheek swab from Barbara while she was unconscious, and obviously one had been taken from Essie and Isabelle as well because she’d been told they had conclusive evidence: Essie could not be her daughter. Barbara’s reaction, possibly because of the antipsychotic drugs she’d be given, had been anticlimactic. She didn’t gasp or scream or beg for another result. She was too bewildered to do any of those things. But the idea that Essie wasn’t hers didn’t compute. It was as though she’d been told her right arm actually belonged to another person.
Barbara had been in and out of sleep since regaining consciousness. But during her every waking minute, she thought about Essie. So when there was a knock at the door, Barbara’s heart leapt. As gently as she could, she swiveled her head so she was facing the door. But it wasn’t Essie standing there.
It was Isabelle.
“I just want to talk to you,” Isabelle said.
Barbara had expected the visit. Perhaps not quite so soon, but she’d expected it. For some reason, perhaps the medication, she felt oddly numb. “I suppose you want to tell me what you think of me. Go ahead. I’m sure you’ve got plenty to say.”
“I thought I would have plenty to say. But as it turns out … I don’t.”
They watched each other, sizing each other up. Isabelle looked like Essie, Barbara realized. Had she always? Or was she projecting it now that she knew the truth? Certainly, looking at her now, it seemed impossible that Barbara hadn’t noticed the moment Isabelle arrived in Pleasant Court.
“Have you seen Essie?” Barbara asked.
“Yes.”
“Is she all right?”
Isabelle gave a wide-eyed shrug that demonstrated the ridiculousness of the question, and Barbara felt foolish. Of course she wasn’t all right. How did anyone process the fact that their mother wasn’t their mother? That they were kidnapped as a baby?
Isabelle stood across the room, still in the doorway. She seemed to have run out of things to say, and Barbara didn’t know what to say to her. There was no apology or explanation that wouldn’t feel useless and inadequate. “I’m on some quite strong medication so I’m not sure that I can do this justice, but for what it’s worth, I am sorry for the trauma I caused you and your family.”
Isabelle shru
gged again. The last time Barbara had seen her she’d had so much to say, but today she seemed lost. Or perhaps torn was a better word. It was as if she had no idea what she’d come here for.
“Obviously it’s not enough but … maybe … photo albums from when Essie was a child? Or mementos? I still have every one of her baby teeth. And videos of her ballet concerts! Actually, I have videos of most of her birthdays—”
“You were obviously a good mother, Barbara.”
Barbara blinked in surprise. “Well,” she said, “I don’t know—”
“You were. Essie told me you were.”
Isabelle swayed back and forth on the spot. It had been a full-on few days for her, clearly. Barbara wished she were feeling better, so she could make the girl a cup of tea and give her a biscuit.
“How are you doing?” Barbara asked.
Isabelle tossed the question around for a few moments. “I’m … happy to have my sister back.”
“And your family. How are they?”
“They’re shocked. Overwhelmed. My dad and my brother are in Melbourne now, actually.”
“They are?” Barbara was about to ask why, but of course, she was being dim-witted. Of course they were in Melbourne. They were coming to see Essie.
Isabelle still hadn’t moved from the doorway. “I want to ask you something, Barbara.”
Barbara steeled herself. Here it came.
“What did you know?”
Barbara exhaled. “I didn’t know anything.”
Isabelle watched her with a gaze that wasn’t angry or even judgmental. She was assessing her, wondering whether she could be trusted.
“Maybe,” Isabelle said.
Barbara opened her mouth to respond but by the time she did Isabelle had already walked out the door.
64
ISABELLE
“Jules?”
Isabelle slammed the front door. She’d had to concentrate on not speeding home from the hospital. It wasn’t that she wanted to get away so much as she suddenly—desperately—wanted to get home.
“In here,” he called.
Isabelle had expected to feel angry after seeing Barbara, but she didn’t. She didn’t believe that Barbara knew nothing, but she also wasn’t sure Barbara was the monster she’d drawn in her mind for years either. The fact was, nothing about finding Sophie had been the way she had expected—least of all, the way she felt now. Free.
And determined.
Jules was at the dining table, bent over his computer, but when she entered the room he glanced up. “Hey.”
“Hey,” she said. “You like coffee, right? Good coffee, I mean. Pretentious coffee. Deconstructed lattes, that sort of thing.”
Julian sat back in his chair, stretching his arms above his head. “Who doesn’t love a pretentious coffee?”
“And art. And live music, you love live music.”
He opened his mouth.
“And little laneways with secret doorways leading to wonderful restaurants? Winters that are actually cold? The Great Ocean Road?”
He crossed his arms and waited for her to finish.
“So you know what I was thinking on the way home? You and I aren’t Sydney people! I mean, right? We don’t care about sunshine or surfing. Our skin burns in the shade.”
“Sooo?”
“Sooo…” She pushed Jules’s chair back and sat in his lap. “Sydney is wasted on us. We’re Melbourne people, don’t you think? I think we should move here.”
“Uh … I have a job, remember?” he said in a you’ve lost your mind voice.
“There are schools in Melbourne. Needy schools. Students that need a teacher like you.”
She felt a whisper of worry. On the way home from the hospital, during a brief moment of insanity, it had all fit together so perfectly. She and Jules would move to Melbourne, live near her sister and nieces, and live happily ever after. But she’d already asked so much of Jules. She’d abandoned him to go in search of her sister. He’d traveled out here to make sure she was all right, and he’d supported her through the past few weeks. The man had to draw the line somewhere.
“You don’t want to live in Melbourne,” she said.
It wasn’t the end of the world, Isabelle told herself. They’d be able to make it work. She had her sister back, that was the important thing. She couldn’t expect every puzzle piece of her life to click together just because she wanted it to. All her life she’d lived with a piece of her puzzle missing, and maybe that was just the way life was. Maybe, instead of focusing on the piece she didn’t have, she should focus on the pieces she did have.
Jules rearranged her on his lap. He cocked his head and let out a long, slow sigh. “I didn’t say I didn’t want to live in Melbourne.”
Isabelle zeroed in on his face, holding her breath.
“I just think that maybe we should go for a deconstructed latte and talk about it.”
65
BARBARA
Barbara was feeling a little better. She’d had a visit from Lois, which had lifted her spirits. Lois was utterly convinced that Barbara was the victim in all this, finding out that her daughter wasn’t hers after all these years. Everyone needed a friend like Lois. The doctors had told her that she’d stay in the hospital until her physical injuries were under control and then she’d be transferred to Summit Oaks’ psychiatric program, the place Essie had been staying.
I didn’t know anything. That’s what she’d said to Isabelle. But it wasn’t entirely true, was it? There had been things, little things she’d tried to justify over the years—things that didn’t quite add up. Things like … why didn’t she remember those first moments after Essie was born? Why was Essie so big and healthy when she was born premature? Why did she have auburn hair? And perhaps, now that she thought of it, there were other things too. Like the fact that the name Sophie Heatherington rang a bell. That she’d decided to leave Sydney the day she’d been released from the hospital, and never went back, even to visit friends or family. The fact that from the moment Isabelle had arrived in Pleasant Court, she’d had a bad feeling.
Was it true that she didn’t know? Or was it that she didn’t want to know?
“Mum?”
Barbara glanced toward the door and her heart leapt. It was Essie. She stepped inside uncertainly. “Were you sleeping?”
“No. I was wide awake.”
Essie put her purse on the chair in the corner, then came to Barbara’s bedside. There was a look of wary affection in her face. “How are you feeling?”
“Oh, you know,” Barbara said, sitting up. “Like I’ve been hit by a tram.”
Essie didn’t smile.
“I’m glad you’re here, honey.” Barbara put out a hand and squeezed her forearm. “I worried you wouldn’t come.”
Essie kept her eyes down and forward. “Of course. You’re my…”
Essie’s gaze bounced up. You’re my mum. That’s what she was going to say. Instead she said: “How did this happen?”
“Well,” Barbara said, “they think it was postpartum psychosis, and post-traumatic stress from losing my … my other baby and—”
“I know what the doctors said.” Essie’s voice wobbled with restrained emotion. “But I’m asking you. How did this happen?”
Barbara lifted her hands, and then let them fall back against the bed. “I can’t answer that. Really, honey, I don’t know.”
“But how can that be true? How? There must have been a part of you that knew. I feel like … if Mia or Polly weren’t mine … I’d know.”
“I did know.” Barbara’s voice broke. “I knew! I knew you were mine. I knew with every ounce of my body. And then I found out you weren’t.”
Barbara burst into loud, desperate tears. She curved over onto herself. After a moment, she felt Essie’s hand on her back. “All right. All right. I’m sorry.”
“You … you are my whole life, Essie.” Tears racked her body.
“I know. It’s okay, Mum. I know.”
&nb
sp; Barbara cried until she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer, and the nicest part was, after she finally succumbed and drifted off, Essie’s hand remained on her back.
66
ANGE
Ange had a paintbrush in her hand when the doorbell rang. She was on the back porch, muddying up a canvas with big streaks of color that clashed. She’d had the idea this morning—why not paint something? It felt remarkably indulgent. Beside her on a large piece of newspaper lay several household utensils—a spatula, a butter knife, a sponge—which she was using to create texture. Once, not so long ago, she’d have taken a picture of the utensils all lined up and posted it on Instagram (#colors; #creating; #art), but she didn’t do that today. This little piece of herself wasn’t for show. This was something that was just for her.
Ollie had come out half an hour earlier, looking appalled. “What is that?” he’d said, curling his lip.
“A painting.”
“Why?”
“I used to paint when I was younger,” she said brightly. “Why not now?”
He’d wandered off muttering: “Am I the only sane one in this house?”
Perhaps he was. Certainly the painting wasn’t any good. The colors had run together, making everything look brown and unappealing. But Ange was enjoying it. As it turned out, Lucas wasn’t the only one who could create adventures or fun in her life. She could be spontaneous too. Not once since Lucas had left had she watched a rerun of Oprah. Several times over the past few weeks she’d taken the boys out on an adventure. The first one (to the movies) had admittedly not been totally inspired, but it had been raining and she was just starting off. Last night she’d decided that on her next scheduled weekend with the boys she’d drive them to the airport and board the first flight they could get on. Oh yes, her adventures were going to be good. Maybe even better than Lucas’s.
The boys seemed to be taking the split well so far, but Ange knew there’d be bumps along the way. Ollie, in particular, had become fond of the phrase “at Dad’s house we…” Lucas had found himself an apartment in Black Rock, the next suburb, so he was still close by, and their custody arrangement had been working well. Lucas had the boys every other weekend, as well as Wednesday nights. He’d introduced the boys to their sister, which they seemed to have taken in their stride—though when Ollie had asked if Charlie could come and play at their house, Ange had just about choked on her chardonnay. She was going to be the cool, easygoing mum, but even she had her limits.
The Family Next Door Page 23