The Family Next Door(66)

As she drove, Barbara cast her mind back to the day she found out she was pregnant with Essie. She’d had two pregnancies before, both of which had ended in miscarriage during the first trimester, but this one, she was certain, was going to stick. She’d been married for three years by then. The first year had been average, the second worse. The third year had been unbearable. She’d met John at a casino at 1 A.M., a few weeks after her father’s death. John had just won a game of cards and he’d insisted on buying her a drink. Their wedding, six months later, was a knee-jerk reaction to losing her parents’, she knew that now. She wasn’t used to being alone, and the desire to create a new family to replace the old was stronger than she imagined.

They lost the car first, on a horse that “just couldn’t lose.” Next was the house they’d bought with her inheritance. They ended up renting a one-bedroom apartment. She questioned the logic of a one-bedroom when they were about to have a baby but John said they’d make do. The yearning for her parents was unrelenting. Her mother would have brought her home and cared for her during her pregnancy, and her father would have given John a stern word, then taught him how to better manage money. They may have even loaned them money to buy another modest house, in exchange for letting them oversee the finances. It would have been a learning experience and they would have done better in the future.

But Barbara’s parents weren’t there.

John wasn’t there a lot either. He’d been emotionally absent for most of their marriage, but as her pregnancy progressed he was physically absent a lot too. Everyone seemed to be absent. Barbara had had friends earlier in her life, but one by one, she stopped visiting them, instead spending all of her time holed up in the apartment, worrying. She worried about what would happen if they were evicted from the apartment for not paying the bills. She worried she’d have nowhere to bring home her baby. It started to get inside her mind, the worry. The only thing that got her through the worry was the knowledge that a baby was coming.

She found a crib for the baby at the charity shop, a few items of clothing, and a teddy bear. She set it all up in a corner of the bedroom. Some days she’d just sit in the bedroom and look at the things she’d set up. It comforted her, somehow.

John had disappeared by the time Barbara went into labor. She’d been was getting ready to go to bed when she felt the first contraction—so strong it took her breath away. By the time her taxi arrived to take her to the hospital, she couldn’t talk.

“It’s early,” she remembered telling the nurse. “Thirty-five weeks.”

The nurse nodded. There hadn’t been time to fill out the paperwork, to talk … to do anything but push. It didn’t take long. Barbara tried once again to remember the way Essie looked when she was placed in her arms, but she couldn’t. She remembered other things. The averted eyes of the hospital staff. The coldness of the room. She remembered the feeling of the baby in her arms, the barely-there weight against her hospital gown.

Why couldn’t she remember her face?

And just like that, the face started to come. Perfect closed eyes. Bright red, blistered skin and deep purple lips. She was tiny. Too tiny.

“Why … why does she look like this?” she’d asked.

“Maceration,” the doctor said. “The epidermis has started to separate from the dermis. Judging by the color of her skin, she probably died four to six hours ago in utero, around the time you went into labor. I’m sorry but your baby was stillborn.”

Stillborn.

Barbara swerved off the road and onto a side street, pulling up sharp.

Your baby was stillborn.

No. That wasn’t right. Barbara glanced in the rearview mirror. She was there in the backseat. Essie was right there. She wasn’t stillborn. She was healthy and perfect, a toddler now.

“Where are we?” she asked. She looked hot and bothered and on the verge of sleep.

“Sorry, honey. Mummy just had a horrible daydream.”

Essie looked puzzled. “Did she?”

“We’re going home now, baby,” Barbara told her. But when she looked around, nothing looked familiar. How far had she drifted while daydreaming? Was she even in Sydney anymore?

She got out her road map and tried to get her bearings.




When I got home from the hospital, everything was exactly as I’d left it. A half-drunk glass of water sat on the end table; my pajamas lay on the floor of the hallway where they’d been discarded. I came inside and set your basket on the sofa. Your eyelids flickered in sleep and I felt a sense of peace. I wasn’t alone anymore.

John had been gone for three months. The other woman’s name was Laurel. She was his hairdresser, of all things, and I knew her. Whenever John went in to get his hair cut, I always poked my head in and said “not too short,” and Laurel laughed. Then, as I headed off to the greengrocers, Laurel always waved at me through the window, her shaving blade still in her hand. I should have known that was ominous.

Laurel wasn’t especially attractive. She had brassy-blond hair and she always seemed to be wearing a floral dress covered by a black PVC apron. I had never looked closely enough to notice whether Laurel had an ample bosom or nice hips under than apron. John obviously had.

“But I’m pregnant,” I’d told John, when he’d made the confession. He knew that, of course, since I reminded him every day. Not to mention the fact that for the first time I actually had a bump. I called John the day you were born and told him he had a daughter. He’d seemed pleased and said he’d put an announcement in the paper. But there was no request to visit. No offer of financial assistance.