The Family Next Door(3)
The tall woman made no move to hand Mia over. Instead she clutched her tighter, which made Mia even more hysterical. “She left the park without her baby?”
“Yes, well … she was tired and…”
Essie sidled up slowly.
“. . you know how your brain can be when you have a newborn!” Her mum have a half-hearted laugh and then petered out. What else could she say? There was no explanation that would suffice and she knew it.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said curtly, “but … how do we know she’s your granddaughter? We found her abandoned in a park. We can’t just hand her over.”
Essie sidled up slowly. She felt a scream building in her throat. She wanted all these women to go away. She wanted to go away. Back to a time when she was a normal, childless woman—not a crazy lady who left babies in the park.
“Her name is Mia,” her mum tried again. “She’s eight weeks old. Her blanket was hand-knitted by me and it has frayed on one corner. Mia has a birthmark on her right thigh—a port wine stain.”
The woman exchanged a glance with her friend. “I’m sorry but I really think we should wait for the—”
“What do you want us to do?” Essie cried. “Sign an affidavit? She doesn’t have any ID. Just give her to me,” she said, pushing forward. “Give me my baby!”
Essie felt her mum’s hand on her shoulder. “Essie—”
“Give her to me.”
“Essie, you need to calm d—”
“GIVE ME MY BABY!” she screamed, and that’s when the police car pulled up.
2
3 years later …
“Good evening, beloved family,” Ben announced, flinging down his sports bag. He bounded into the kitchen to kiss Essie and Mia. “Beloved wife and daughter.” He scooted a few paces to the right and put an arm around Barbara, who sat on a bar stool, doing a crossword. “Beloved mother-in-law.”
Barbara pushed him off. “Ben! You’re sweaty.”
“As you would be, Barbie, if you’d done three back-to-back boxing sessions and then jogged home!”
He took off his cap and skimmed it across the counter. It collected a butter knife and a garlic press and all three landed with a clatter on the kitchen floor. Essie shot a glance at her mother who rolled her eyes and looked back at her crossword.
“A little bird told me,” Ben said to Mia, “that you could fly.”
She looked at him skeptically. “No, I can’t.”
“Are you sure? Because I’m sure the bird said…” He grabbed Mia off the kitchen counter and flung her into the air. She shrieked in delight. He was so slick with sweat it looked like Mia may slide right through his hands.
On their wedding day, Ben’s best man had likened him to a Doberman—a fair comparison, in Essie’s opinion. Not only was he happy, hopeless and incredibly loyal, he was also large, clumsy and accident prone. Whenever he arrived in a room it suddenly felt full, which was both comforting … and a little nerve-wracking.
“See,” he said, “… you can fly.” He put her down.
Ben ran a fitness studio, The Shed, a studio created to assist people’s dreams of being their own bona fide Hulk outside the boardroom as well as inside. Eighteen months ago he’d also developed an app, Ten with Ben, which allowed people to download a new ten-minute workout and meal plan every day. The app had received huge media coverage and had even been endorsed by several high-profile football players. As a result his business had exploded. He now had ten full-time staff—and dozens of casuals—but as Ben couldn’t possibly sit still at a desk all day, he still took the classes.
“Where is beloved daughter number two?” Ben asked.
Beloved daughter no. 2 had come along six months ago. It had taken nearly two years for Essie to convince Ben to try for another baby. (“Why not be happy with what we’ve got?” he said, over and over again. “Why would we risk it?”) Obviously, Essie understood his concerns. It had taken months—and a stint as an inpatient in a psychiatric hospital—for her to recover after leaving Mia in the park that day, and her doctor explained that after last time, her chances of her post-partum depression recurring were significant. But Essie did recover. And she wanted a second chance to be the mother she’d planned to be from the get-go. It was her mother moving in next door that had finally swayed Ben (also, Essie thought, a stab at having a son). Unfortunately Ben didn’t get his son but Essie did get her second chance. And much to everyone’s relief, this time Essie had been fine.
Well, mostly fine.
“Polly’s asleep,” Essie said.
“In this heat?”
It was the fourth day of temperatures above forty degrees Celsius and it was all anyone could talk about. A heatwave like this usually happened at least once during a Melbourne summer, but that didn’t stop everyone from talking about it as if it was a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. (Hot enough for you? I don’t remember it being this hot when I was a kid. I hear a cool change is due on Thursday.)
“Apparently so,” Essie said. “We’ll see how long it lasts.”
Polly had been a good sleeper to begin with, but a couple of weeks ago she’d started waking at odd intervals, sometimes as often as hourly. It felt like a cruel joke, giving her a perfect baby only to have her regress like this at six months old.