The Family Next Door(79)

It had been a funny few weeks. It felt like the street had changed somehow. Now when she walked out of her house and saw one of the neighbors, she went over and said hello—even if it was early in the morning. It seemed impossible to her now that they had all been going through their own private torture while living right next door to each other. She and Nigel had been slowly rebuilding their relationship and were speaking to each other with a sort of nervous politeness that felt incongruent with the fact that they’d been married nearly ten years—but it was actually quite lovely. People who bothered to be nervous and polite were people who wanted their marriage to work.

She remembered the conversation they’d had at the hospital.

“I can get past the affair,” he’d said after the doctor had given them the same information as the nurse had. That Ava was responding well to treatment and that she would, most likely, be fine to go home in a few days.

“And Ava?” Fran had asked, welling up. “Did you want to get a pater—”

He’d flicked his gaze to the crib, where she lay. “I don’t need a paternity test,” he said. “She’s mine.”

Fran opened her eyes. The sky outside was starting to lighten … she couldn’t go back to sleep now. She thought about going for a run, but the chill made her feel lazy. She’d been too lazy to run for a couple of weeks now, ever since Ava was sick. Once they got back into the swing of things, she might start running again. Or she might not.

She rolled over. Nigel’s side of the bed was empty, and the bedroom door was ajar. She grabbed her robe and wandered through the quiet house, finding Nigel in Ava’s room.

“Was she crying?” she whispered.

“No.”

Fran joined him beside the crib and they both looked down at her. She looked different like this, slack with sleep. She was swaddled tightly, her arms stuck to her sides and her plump head peeking out at the top, like an ice cream in a cone. Her eyelashes lay, fat and dark, on her cheeks.

“She’s mine,” Nigel whispered. “I looked at her chart in the hospital. Her blood group is O negative.”

Fran remembered the trivia night. O negative is quite rare.

She and Nigel were both O negative.

Rosie was O negative.

Nigel’s gaze had moved off Ava, and onto Fran.

“It wouldn’t have mattered to me,” he said.

“But she’s yours? She’s actually yours?”

“There is a statistically significant probability that that is the case,” he answered, shifting his gaze back to Ava. “And that’s good enough for me.”





68


ESSIE


Six months later …


Essie lay on the couch with Mia, watching The Little Mermaid for the 7,896th time. Ben sat on the other end of the couch with Essie’s feet in his lap. Ben had been spending a lot more time watching movies with them lately. He’d dropped down to part-time hours and hired a manager to take care of a lot of his duties at T he Shed, though he still took a lot of classes, which had always been his favorite part anyway.

“I’m Ariel,” Mia said. “Because we have the same hair. You are King Triton, Daddy. Polly is Flounder.” She looked at Essie uncertainly. “You are … um, Sebastian.”

It was a game they always played when they watched movies. Mia inevitably ended up with the most beautiful, heroic character and Essie ended up being a crab.

“What about Gran?” Essie asked. “Who is she?”

Mia went quiet.

Essie was grateful, at least, that she didn’t say Ursula, the vile sea witch that stole Ariel’s voice but she was sad that Barbara didn’t get a role in this game anymore. Barbara had spent five months as an inpatient in Summit Oaks, as had been ordered by the court. Due to her mental condition, she had been found not guilty of the kidnapping charge brought by the state, and sentencing had been helped greatly by Essie convincing her father—Graham—to speak in Barbara’s defense. During her time at Summit Oaks, Essie had visited her twice a week, with Mia and Polly in tow, and while Mia was happy to go, she hadn’t fully regained her trust in Barbara after their odd car trip to Albury. She never talked about what happened that day, she just mentioned at random times that her Gran was at the hospital with unusual significance.

When Barbara was released a month ago, she’d moved into a smaller house in Hampton, just a five-minute drive from Pleasant Court. Still close, but not quite as close—which was an accurate appraisal of their relationship too. Barbara was still around, but not as much as she used to be, and they’d all decided that she shouldn’t spend unsupervised time with the girls anymore but Essie knew she was struggling with her new role—was she a mother and grandmother? A friend?—and it was made all the more awkward when Mia would mention her biological grandfather, “Papa,” who’d been coming to visit nearly every weekend since they’d found her. But they all had adjusting to do. There’d probably be a lot more adjusting to come.

As the credits started to run, there was a brief knock at the door, and Isabelle strolled in.

“Hi, Izzy,” they called.

They’d gotten used to this level of comfort around each other over the past months. Isabelle waddled inside and lowered herself onto the other end of the couch. Jules had secured a job at a high school in Melbourne, and they were renting an apartment in Collingwood. After Isabelle’s baby was born, Essie was going to go and stay in their spare room and help her with the baby, and she couldn’t wait.