The Family Next Door(14)
Isabelle joined Ange on the fence and hitched her long skirt up to her knees. Her legs were smooth and creamy white. Ange was forever going to get spray tans to avoid this sort of pallor, but on Isabelle it looked exotic, like she belonged to another era.
Ollie zoomed by them, leaping off his board and landing (with luck rather than skill) back on it again. Isabelle cheered.
“Woohoo,” she cried. “Check you out, Ollie!”
Ollie glanced over, puffing out his chest at the unexpected praise.
Ollie. Ange. Isabelle certainly liked using people’s names. Ange was one to use names herself—in real estate, you had to—but she’d always been suspicious of others who did the same. When she did it, her motivation was to assert a false sense of friendship to help sell a house. The question was, what was Isabelle’s motivation?
“So tell me,” Ange started, “what brought you to Melbourne? You said it was work, but is that all it was?”
It may have been Ange’s imagination, but Isabelle’s spine seemed to straighten. “Yes,” she said. “Mostly.”
Ange jumped on that. “Mostly? So, there was more?”
“Let’s call it … a personal project.”
“Sounds intriguing.” Ange leaned in and touched her elbow to Isabelle’s, as if they were close girlfriends. “What is his name? Or … hers?”
Mr. Larritt’s car pulled into the street and honked the horn. Ange cursed at his timing.
“Ollie,” she called out. “Off the road.” She kept her eyes on Isabelle, trying to think of a way to casually bring conversation back.
‘“Does he look like his dad?” Isabelle asked before Ange could speak. “Ollie, I mean.”
“Oh.” Ange waved her hand dismissively. “He doesn’t look like either of us, really. We assume he’s a throwback. Anyway, tell me more about—”
Before Ange could finish, she heard a thump followed by the sickening crack of bone. By the time she looked, Ollie was lying on the ground. Before she even got her thoughts together enough to move, Isabelle was sprinting toward him.
9
In the hospital waiting room, Ollie was asleep with his head on Ange’s lap. She was certain this gave her the look of a caring, concerned mother—which was lovely, if entirely inaccurate. In fact, she was highly irritated with Ollie. Sure, his wrist was in a terrible state, but he was happily doped up on morphine and passed out, stretched across three seats. She could’ve used a little morphine, just quietly. Instead, she was pinned to a sticky seat by her drugged eight-year-old, unable to move or even to reach her iPhone.
Ollie gave a long, sleepy sigh. Ange knew, of course, that she was lucky. Things could have gone very differently. She remembered that split second after she heard the crunch of bone. Her fear had been ice cold, paralyzing. By the time she’d got her legs to move, Isabelle was already by his side, gently assessing his injuries while speaking to him in a low reassuring voice. The voice of a mother, Ange remembered thinking.
Mr. Larritt had braked in time, thank goodness, but Ollie had panicked and landed with all his weight on his wrist. Clearly it was broken, and quite badly—but as he was in no danger of death, Ange’s mind had immediately moved to practical matters. She knew they’d likely have to wait in the emergency room for hours before Ollie was fitted with a cast. There’d be paperwork, a visit to the chemist for painkillers. Lucas had come along for moral support, but of course he was currently nowhere to be seen.
Lucas had a habit of wandering off. Sometimes Ange felt like she was married to an elderly man with Alzheimer’s. Any minute he’d probably come back with someone he’d met whose job it was to … peel oranges at the juice bar. Lucas would be genuinely fascinated. (“She peels the oranges! Bet you never thought about who did that, did you? You just drank your juice and didn’t give it a second thought!”)
Lucas found everyone and everything amazing. It was the way they’d met, in fact, in the local coffee shop. (“You’re a real estate agent? You have your own business! Did you hear that, random guy reading the newspaper? She’s a real estate agent!”) Ange had been charmed, of course. Who wouldn’t be? A gorgeous man who found her fascinating! Unfortunately it was a trait that got old after a few years of marriage—particularly when he was impressed so easily.
Ange looked at the clock on the wall. They’d arrived an hour and a half ago and every minute since had crawled. Ange hadn’t been in Emergency very often, but each time she had, she found herself wishing her ailment (or more often, her child’s) was just a little bit worse. Not life-threatening, obviously. But worrying enough to get seen quickly. (Chest pain, apparently, was the meal ticket. If you said you had chest pain you always went straight to the front of the queue.)
Did eight-year-olds have heart attacks? she wondered.
Ten minutes later Lucas finally appeared, carrying a packet of Twisties and a bottle of water. He winked at her and Ange sagged in relief. Both her legs had gone to sleep and she was desperate for the toilet. Ollie was so doped up he probably wouldn’t even notice if she shimmied out from under him and let Lucas take her place. (It would make a nice pic for Instagram actually. She’d hashtag it #fatherandson #brokenarm #boyswillbeboys.) But as Lucas approached, a pretty thirty-something woman with a blond toddler on her lap waved at him. He stopped. For heaven’s sake. Ange gestured at him impatiently and he sped up again.