The Other Child

by Lucy Atkins

  She slices bagels and slides them into the toaster. Then she texts Nell:

  We are here! All very odd. Huge, empty house. CICADAS. Wild foxes/coyotes/dogs. Fridge you could live in. Shouting neighbours in the night. What on earth have I done? Xx

  Alongside the kitchen there is a deck. It is painted white, peeling in places, shaded by the towering leylandii that divide their house from the neighbours’. She fiddles with the locks and hauls the French windows open. A mesh bug-screen stays in place. She drags this back too and it wobbles on its castors. The air smells of cut grass and summer holidays. It is warm and muggy, even this early in the morning. She peers through the branches into the neighbours’ backyard. It is modest for such a large house, mostly paved, with shrubs and woodchips but no flower beds.

  She can see a low wooden building at the back with floor-to-ceiling windows. She is leaning over the railings to get a better look when her eye catches a movement by the house. It takes a moment for her to understand what she is looking at.

  The woman is leaning against the wall, camouflaged by shadows. Her long hair is loose, and she is wearing a vest top and yoga pants with her arms folded, holding a mug. She is staring over, but her round face is unsmiling.

  Tess feels a tiny shiver pass across her skin and turns, walking to the furthest end of the deck, gripping the railings and looking down over the driveway at the back of the house. There is a basketball hoop.

  Maybe she should have waved or called out hello, but there was something in the woman’s stillness that suggested an almost targeted hostility. She remembers her face at the kitchen window in the middle of the night, unnaturally still, as if watching for movement in the downstairs rooms. She takes in a lungful of humid air. The neighbours’ marital problems are nothing to do with her.

  She looks at the branches of the trees. The house doesn’t feel like part of a massive suburban sprawl, with the cut-grass smells, the birdsong, the whispering leaves all around. She tries to imagine Joe playing basketball in this driveway with new friends. And then, tentatively, as if biting into a potentially unripe fruit, she imagines sitting here, on this deck, with her new baby. She can feel the weight of its dense little body, tiny fingers curled around hers, hair so soft that it seems imaginary, and that new-baby smell – of green shoots, sweet dough. But of course when this baby is born she won’t be sitting out here, because it will be January, the dead of winter. And Boston winters, Greg has warned her, are brutal.

  She feels a faint flickering in her belly and closes both hands over it. She is beginning to feel the baby, even at eighteen weeks, but perhaps it is unfair to expect Greg to connect with it. He was adamant from the start that he didn’t want to be a father. He even mentioned it the first time he told her he loved her, as if the two statements were inseparable.

  They were on the late train back from London, maybe a month after they had met; the carriage was empty and he held her chin and looked into her eyes. ‘I’m completely in love with you,’ he said. And it hadn’t seemed ridiculous, because she felt it too. They fitted together beneath the surface; she already knew that she belonged with him and nobody else. Then he said, gently but firmly, ‘I’m happy to have Joe in my life but I don’t want another child. Is that going to be a problem for you?’

  She’d kissed him and reassured him that she was happy just with Joe too. When Joe was smaller she’d wanted another baby – she felt guilty that he didn’t have a sibling; she didn’t want him to feel the sort of loneliness or responsibility for a parent that she had felt as a child – but then David left, and gradually that longing passed and then they’d been content, just the two of them. But sometimes, now, she wonders what would have happened on the train if, instead of kissing Greg, she had pulled away, shaken her head, said that she did want another baby, that she longed for one – that she wanted his baby. Would he have pulled away too? Changed his mind? Stopped loving her?

  She thinks of the twelve-week scan, when they held hands while the sonographer picked out a hand with tiny, identifiable fingers, the tight plait of a spine, a jawbone, a nose, two sharp leg-bones and then, in the darkness, the squeezing knot of a heart. As she watched the map of their baby take shape on the screen all her doubts evaporated and she felt a rush of pure love – of joy. But Greg said nothing. She wanted to believe that he was overwhelmed too, feeling the same things, but she wasn’t sure. When the sonographer zoomed in on the baby’s heart again, clicking, taking stills and measurements, Greg stepped closer, scrutinizing the images for abnormalities.

  He will come round when he holds this baby in his arms for the first time. He has held thousands of infants but never his own – he has no idea how powerful it is to look down at your baby’s face for the first time. She hears her phone beep in the kitchen: a text – Nell probably. Joe will be waiting for a bagel. She walks back down the deck, keeping her eyes fixed forward. Her neck tingles as she steps inside. She knows she is being watched.

  *

  After breakfast, she goes onto the front porch. Greg said there were families in the street, but it is the end of the summer holidays, gone eight in the morning, and the lawns are empty and silent except for the whirr and hiss of sprinklers. There are no flower beds, only shrubs and rockeries and mown grass. Theirs, she realizes, is the only house with a fence.

  A lawnmower buzzes nearby and sunlight bounces off the windowpanes. She lifts a hand to shield her eyes. Perhaps the neighbours are looking out at her right now – but it is impossible to tell. She walks over to the fence and peers back at the house next door. It is a proper New England Arts and Crafts home with wooden cladding painted a subtle green, a full-length porch and – yes – a porch swing. Just the sort of house she’d imagined living in. All the blinds are drawn.

  Then the front door bursts open. She shrinks back so that she is almost inside a tall shrub, then parts the branches and peers through. A man is on the porch, with a satchel, cropped brown hair. ‘Girls!’ he yells over his shoulder. ‘Now!’ His voice is unmistakable, but it is more impatient than angry today. She watches him hop down the steps, pulling out a mobile and scrolling through messages as he beeps open the locks of a car she can’t see. He is wearing a pressed blue shirt and khakis, no tie. He is average size, attractive, clean-cut. She wonders what time he came back last night, and where he went after yelling at his wife.

  He glances up, as if he has sensed her, and she shrinks back. The leaves are prickly, a branch is digging into her ribcage and dust coats her lips and eyelids. She moves her leg and a twig catches her ankle, then something trails across her face. She swipes up a hand and pulls something sticky off her cheek – a big, brown, flickering spider drops down the front of her T-shirt. She jerks away, yanking herself off the branch, hearing the fabric rip; bits fall out as she flaps her shirt. A silver people carrier is reversing out of the next-door driveway, and she finds herself standing by its open passenger window.

  ‘Hey.’ The man leans over the passenger seat, grinning. ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘I was … I was just …’ She brushes herself down, unable to think of a reasonable explanation for hiding in a shrub. ‘We just moved in.’

  ‘Oh, you’re English! I think I’ve seen your husband coming and going a few times – at least, I assume he’s your husband? Tall, dark hair?’

  ‘Yes, that’s Greg. He’s been out here setting things up.’

  His smile stiffens. ‘My wife’s met him.’

  Greg talked about signing the lease, getting keys, doing inventories with the realtor, blowing up mattresses, but he never mentioned meeting the neighbours.

  ‘Well, I’m Josh.’

  ‘Tess.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, Tess. Welcome to the neighbourhood. And now I have to get my girls to music camp.’

  She steps back and he reverses fully into the street, yelling to his girls through his open window.

  She walks over to the swing set and perches on it. There is a triangular rip in the expensive white fabric of her T-s
hirt and it is smeared with dirt. She rocks, anchored by her toes, turning her face to the sky. Her ankle stings where the twig scratched it. This does not feel like a good start. A cloud floats across the sun and small dark birds swoop to and fro as if lost.

  ‘Hello, beautiful!’

  She opens her eyes. Greg is striding across the lawn, his shirt a broad white sail against the sea of grass. She leaps off the swing and he drops his bags, catching her in his arms, pulling her against him. She smells the staleness of airports on him, feels the warmth of his chest beneath the crisp cotton and presses her nose into the crook of his neck where he only smells of himself. He pulls back, they look at each other at arm’s length, holding hands in the sunlight, and everything feels energized again, full and round and back in its rightful place.

  Chapter Three

  It has only been four weeks, but already this is the time of day she dreads the most. The women gather in sub-groups, holding travel mugs, wearing Lycra and Nikes, khakis and loafers, embracing, calling out to each other across the playground, making arrangements, sharing frustrations, information and stories as their eyes skim over her.

  She has never enjoyed the school gate, even at home. Nell, a member of the PTA, used to try to co-opt her into organizing cake stalls, quiz nights and promises auctions, but even she gave up eventually. ‘You’re just not a joiner,’ she’d said, ‘are you? You’re a lone wolf.’

  But this level of discomfort is something else entirely. It is like being a gatecrasher at a party you never wanted to attend. The only other person standing alone is a woman in an ice-blue shift dress, on the edge of the playground. Tess squints through the sun and realizes it is the next-door neighbour, Helena.

  She looks more groomed than she did at 5.30 this morning, when she was outside their house, talking to Greg.

  Tess had woken up much earlier than usual, starving, with not a trace of nausea. She got up and rolled up the new blinds in the bedroom to find the street below bathed in rosy dawn light – and there was Greg, in running gear, with this woman. Her thick hair was in a ponytail, her body curved but athletic, and as the two of them talked, she raised her chin and ran both hands over her hair in a gesture that lifted her breasts in their Lycra vest. Greg glanced, then looked away.

  When she heard the front door open she went downstairs.

  ‘Hey – what are you doing up?’ Greg said. ‘It’s not even six.’

  ‘I don’t know, I woke up starving. Was that our neighbour?’

  ‘Out there? Yeah.’

  ‘Did you run together?’

  ‘What? No.’ He kicked off his trainers.

  ‘Is she nice?’

  ‘You haven’t met her yet?’

  ‘Well, I’ve seen her a few times, but we haven’t actually spoken.’

  He turned away to put his trainers into the hall cupboard. ‘You should go say hi, she’s pretty friendly. She’s called Helena, she’s a doctor; her kids are at Joe’s school.’ He kissed her briefly on the mouth, then slipped past her, up the stairs, to the shower.

  She tries to make eye contact across the playground, but Helena is typing into her phone, tapping one heel, leaning her shoulder on the knee of the sinister Humpty-Dumpty carving on the side of the school building. It is a vast, bulbous stone figure, the sort of thing first-graders must have nightmares about. Its grey eyes follow Tess as she crosses the playground.

  She is almost there when a chubby girl, around seven years old, runs past her – Helena’s youngest. Helena looks up, says something sharply to her daughter, puts away her phone and strides towards her silver Prius with the little girl trailing behind, dragging a Hello Kitty backpack. As she reaches the car, Helena looks back at Tess. Their eyes meet, Tess raises a hand, but Helena gives no sign of recognition. She gets into the car and slams the door.

  Tess turns back to the school, feeling her face flare. The snub was so obvious she can feel the other mothers staring openly now. More children are pouring out of the double doors. She tries to collect herself because Joe is going to emerge any moment, pale and wall-eyed. A couple of times lately he has thrown his backpack at her feet and taken off across the park towards the house.

  And here he is, with a face as white as the puff of cloud above the red-brick building. She lifts a hand and although she knows that he has seen her, he doesn’t wave back, he just skims past, face closed, neck tight. She follows him over the road and into the park. Other children scamper in the sunshine, shouting, throwing baseballs and footballs, but Joe marches away. His arms are stiff by his sides, his backpack humps against his spine; he looks very small. She wants to run after him and fold her arms around him and hold him tight, protect him against this unhappiness and stress, but she knows that if she tries to catch up he’ll only go faster. Two women glance at her, smile glassily and murmur to each other as she passes.

  When she gets to the house she can’t see Joe, but a woman with a peroxide ponytail is standing on the porch, holding a huge plate of cookies. Her athletic legs, in cut-offs, are tanned, with veins creeping up the calves like vines.

  ‘Hey! I’m Sandra Schechter, I live right across the street.’ She shows large, well-organized teeth, nodding at the tall house opposite. ‘I feel so bad for not coming over before – I’ve been travelling for work, you know how it is – but I brought you a little belated “welcome to the neighbourhood” gift.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, this is so kind.’ Tess takes the plate. It is decorated with stars and stripes and contains enough cookies to feed forty people.

  ‘It’s nothing!’ Sandra’s eyes are kind. ‘I’m just sorry it’s taken me so long to come over and say hi. How’re you guys settling in?’

  Inside the house the phone starts to ring. It does this around the same time every day. Greg, Nell and the obstetrician are the only people who have their home number, but when she picks up the line is invariably dead.

  ‘You’re from England, right? Oh my goodness, we just love England! We were in London last year for my niece’s wedding …’

  Then she remembers the phone ringing late last night, when she was almost asleep. Down in the kitchen she heard Greg answer it and say something in a low voice, then hang up. When he came up she’d surfaced from her half sleep to ask who was calling.

  ‘Nobody. Wrong number.’ He pulled his T-shirt off over his head, obscuring his face. ‘Go back to sleep.’

  The answerphone clicks in now; she hears the distant burr of her own voice asking the caller to leave a message.

  ‘I have to go get Kevin from the after-school programme in a few minutes,’ Sandra is saying, ‘and drive him to his therapist, but I just wanted to, you know, stop by, say hi, let you know that I’m usually around Fridays if you need anything. It must be a little lonely as an at-home mom in a new place? Or are you working?’

  ‘Well, sort of, yes. I’m a photographer. I’m trying to finish a book.’

  ‘Oh, wow! A book? What’s it about?’

  ‘It’s for a charity back in Britain, it’s part of a campaign to support organ donation.’

  ‘Transplants?’ Sandra’s smile drops. ‘You’re photographing transplants?’

  ‘No, no, well, not the actual surgeries. I’m taking pictures of hands – the hands of everyone involved in the donor process: doctors, nurses, the donor families, recipients. The book’s called Hand in Hand. It’s to raise awareness and get people to sign up to the donor register.’

  Sandra nods, looking slightly queasy.

  ‘I need to get it finished before my baby’s born.’

  ‘Oh!’ The smile lights back up. ‘I did wonder if you were … but you know what it’s like, I didn’t want to say anything, just in case! You never know, right? When’s it due?’

  ‘Mid-January.’ She hears Joe’s backpack snagging on the brickwork somewhere behind the shrubs.

  ‘You play tennis, Tess?’

  ‘Tennis? Sorry, no, I don’t.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame. You could have joined us – me a
nd some other moms play every Friday morning at the Y. I played right through my pregnancies – even with the twins.’ Sandra glances around the front yard. ‘I guess your son’s in the after-school programme too?’

  ‘Oh, no, actually, Joe’s here somewhere. He just … he likes to run ahead.’

  ‘He does? What grade is he?’

  ‘Fourth.’

  ‘Well, that’s great. Kevin’s in third grade and our twins, Parker and Dane, are at middle school; they’re fourteen. You’ve probably seen them around.’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’ve seen your husband in his car once or twice though, and a young woman dropping Kevin off at school.’

  ‘Oh, sure, that’s Delia, our nanny. Mike would have come by himself to say hi, but you know how it is. He’s in finance – he works long hours.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Greg’s the same.’

  ‘Oh, yes, your husband. I’ve seen him out running with Helena a few times. They go super-early, don’t they? Doctors’ hours.’

  The late September sun suddenly feels as if it is burning her scalp. Her mouth has gone dry, her armpits feel slippery, her hairline damp.

  ‘What kind of a doctor is Greg?’

  ‘He’s a paediatric heart surgeon.’

  ‘A baby heart doctor? Oh my! Wow! That’s amazing.’ Sandra becomes more focused, stepping closer. ‘Listen, let’s get you over, introduce you to some of the neighbours. Soon – OK?’

  ‘That’d be lovely.’

  ‘It’s a plan then!’ Sandra steps back, as if it is. ‘Right, now, I’ll be late if I don’t go. Nice talking to you, Tess.’

  *

  Joe slips out of the shrubbery as soon as Sandra is gone: a small, feral creature with leaves in his hair.

  ‘Look!’ She lowers the plate. ‘Cookies!’