The Family Next Door(81)
Mia was hovering at the door with them, Barbara noticed. Essie had told Barbara that Mia didn’t remember the day they’d run off to Albury anymore. Kids’ memories are short, she’d said. Barbara wasn’t so sure. The funny thing was, she wasn’t sure if she wanted Mia to forget. If she had forgotten that day, it might mean she’d forgotten everything that came before then. How close they’d been. How she used to sleep over at Barbara’s house, bake cakes with her, fall asleep in her arms. Barbara thought she’d rather Mia remember one mistake, even a scary mistake, than forget all of that.
Barbara felt a tug on her shirtsleeve.
“What is it, Mia?” Barbara asked her.
She pulled Barbara down by the arm, until Barbara’s ear was level with her mouth. “Have you got cookies?” she whispered.
“As a matter of fact, I have some Tim Tams in the pantry. Shall I get—”
But Mia was already hurtling toward the kitchen. She didn’t know her way around this place like she had known Barbara’s house on Pleasant Court, but the wonderful thing about kids was that they didn’t hold back out of politeness. And if there was one thing Barbara was sick of, it was politeness. Barbara heard the sound of chair legs scraping against floorboards and then little knees knocking against them. Finally she heard the great crash of the biscuit tin against the floorboards.
“I guess she found them,” Essie said.
“I guess she did.”
They smiled at each other.
“You got my message then?” Essie said eventually. “Isabelle had her baby.”
“Yes.” Barbara walked toward the lounge room and Essie followed her. “A little girl. It’s wonderful.” She sat down, cleared her throat. “So they called her Sophie?”
“Yes. I think they debated it for a while … They weren’t sure if it was a good idea or not because the name was attached to so many unhappy memories.”
“Because there’s already a Sophie Heatherington,” Barbara said carefully.
“Yes … though, I really feel much more like an Essie Walker.”
Barbara felt her chest tighten. She’d been working with a psychiatrist for nine months now. During that time fragments of the day she took Essie had started returning to her. The doctor saying her baby had died. The moment she saw Essie in her bassinet and felt certain she was her baby. Picking her up and carrying her out to the taxi. It was important, the doctor said, to remember, so she could deal with the trauma and move past it. But Barbara tried not to dwell on those memories unless she was in a therapy session. What she had done was just too unthinkable to face.
“It must be strange having such a big family now,” she said to Essie. “A brother and sister, a father. Two half sisters. And now Mia and Polly have a cousin…”
“I know. It is strange.”
“I’m sorry your mum isn’t alive to see you again.” Barbara picked up a cushion, fluffed it. She couldn’t look Essie in the eye. “And to see those beautiful girls of yours.”
An argument erupted between the girls and Polly came clomping into the room wearing one plastic high heel shoe. Barbara couldn’t believe that she managed to remain upright in it. Polly had biscuit crumbs all over her hands and face and she dropped her face directly into Essie’s lap. Mia appeared a second later, also covered in biscuits, holding the other shoe. She started to rage that she’d had the “clip-clop shoes” first and now Polly had taken one, and you couldn’t share shoes because you needed two and anyway Polly was too little to wear clip-clop shoes anyway, right, Mummy?
Essie looked at her desperately. Her face was so achingly trusting, Barbara thought she might burst into tears.
“Right, who wants to bake a cake?” Barbara said.
By the time Polly lifted her face from Essie’s skirt, Mia was already racing to the kitchen to “get things out.” As Polly scampered after her, Barbara grabbed the abandoned shoes and stuffed them under a cushion.
Essie flopped back against the couch. “Clearly there’s a requirement for a grandmother in this large family of mine.” Her tone was casual but she was watching her a little too intently. “I’m taking applications if you know anyone who might be interested?”
“Gran!” Mia called from the kitchen. “Hurry uuuuuuuup!”
“Coming,” Barbara replied. She winked at Essie and then hurried into the kitchen to bake with her granddaughters.