The Girl Next Door (37 page)

Her parents had learnt a new and terrible lexicon overnight. Things to fear. It was a long, strange list. Unspellable and unpronounceable. Apnoea. Hyperbilirubinaemia. Anaemia. Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Intraventricular haemorrhage.

Her eyes were vulnerable, blindness a possibility. She didn’t have enough surfactant on her lung’s surfaces. She didn’t have enough red blood cells, and her body was too immature to provide them. Her kidneys, bowels and liver were not developed as they should have been. Nothing was. But she had fingernails. Pretty, shell pink, perfectly round fingernails.

There were things they knew. They knew that the first three days were the most dangerous time, but that this journey could take months, and have repercussions that would last for years.

And they had numbers in their heads. Numbers that they never stopped thinking about for even a second. Forty to fifty per cent. Their baby had a forty to fifty per cent chance of survival. Ed worked with numbers and odds and percentages every day of his life, but none, not even in the most important deals, had reverberated around his brain in this way.

And there were things they could only guess at. They called her Hope. What else could they have called her? Hope had not been on the long lists that Eve had made as she lay on the sofa throughout the summer, except maybe as a middle name, but it was the only name either of them could come up with in the hours after her birth. They couldn’t remember what was on the lists. The lists belonged to a different time, a different birth, a different baby.

And as they looked at Hope, through the transparent plastic of her new home, they held each other and they tried to be thankful.

Kim

Big family holidays had been making Jason sad for years now. Big family holidays called for big families. Long trestle tables full of chaos. People talking over each other, and handing around dishes piled with food, and laughing.

Theirs was nothing like that. He was an only child. Kim was an only child. Now Avery was, too. His parents were gone now. And Kim’s. They were orphans, much sooner than they might have expected to be. Orphans without aunts and uncles and cousins. Life wasn’t like an episode of
Friends
. People spent Thanksgiving with their families, not their friends. It was just the three of them for Thanksgiving this year, as it had been every year for the last three. There was no one else. Kim’s father had been with them four years ago. But his advanced dementia had meant, by then, that he barely knew in whose home he was eating Thanksgiving dinner, dull‐eyed, slack‐jawed, and spitting potato with every mouthful. He’d died quietly in the three weeks or so between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and Jason had felt a little ashamed of the relief he felt when he realized he wouldn’t be having his Christmas dinner spat at him, too, or be introducing himself every five minutes in his own home.

It had always felt forced. Even when they were happy together. They were always too noisy, as though they were trying to sound like more of a crowd. Too cheerful.

Jason finished work on Wednesday night and headed home, heavy‐hearted, for the four‐day weekend. At least Rachael was away. Kim had said she’d flown to the Bahamas on Wednesday morning, very early, with the children. He couldn’t face her – hadn’t been able to since Halloween, when he’d made such a prize idiot of himself, and he’d seen that look on her face.

Neither Kim nor Avery came to the door when he got home. The apartment was quiet. He didn’t smell dinner, and he realized he’d grown used to it, in the last couple of months. He felt suddenly hungry, deprived of this sensory stimulation, and he wandered into the kitchen. Kim wasn’t there. The surfaces were all clean and ordered. Avery’s wooden high chair was neatly folded against the wall. He looked at his watch to confirm that he was home at the usual time – he was. He opened the refrigerator, but there was almost nothing in it – some leftover meat loaf from last night, a half‐eaten macaroni and cheese that was almost certainly Avery’s. No turkey, no vegetables, no pie. Nothing that constituted, so far as he could see, preparation for tomorrow’s little, obligatory feast.

They must be out. Maybe they were shopping for food now, although God knows why you’d leave it so late in the day – the supermarket would be a war zone at this point.

Loosening his tie, a little pleased at the solitude, he wandered down to the bedroom he and Kim shared. She was there, sitting in the armchair next to the bed, in the dark, staring out at the lights of the city.

‘Kim?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Are you okay? Where’s Avery?’

‘She’s gone home with Esme.’

‘Since when?’

‘Since Esme took her this afternoon.’

‘For how long?’

‘I’ve to go and pick her up in the morning, before Esme leaves for her sister’s in Philadelphia. I’ll pick up Avery and drive Esme to the train station.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she’s taking the train to Philadelphia.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Kim. Why is Avery at Esme’s? You know perfectly well what I mean.’

She turned to look at him.

‘She’s with Esme because I didn’t want her here when we had the conversation we’re about to have.’

Now he saw a suitcase by the chair. The suitcases were kept on the highest shelf in the wardrobe. Smallest ones inside the bigger ones. This was a medium‐sized one.

‘What’s with the suitcase?’ Whose things were in the case, he wondered. Was she throwing him out, or leaving him? He felt calmer than he thought he would have done. This had been coming, coming for a long time. He just didn’t know what ‘this’ was yet.

Jason took his jacket off, and his shoes, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

‘Can’t you even look at me?’

He swung round, but he couldn’t bring his eyes up to hers.

‘Jason? Please?’

He switched on a lamp, and looked at his wife. Kim had been crying. Her eyes were red‐rimmed and swollen. He felt a dull ache begin in his chest, and realized that it hurt him to see her hurt.

‘We can’t keep on like this, Jason. It isn’t working. We’re not working. It isn’t fair on any of us – you, me or Avery – to keep limping on like this. For how long? How long could you keep going like this, Jason? Another year, two, five? How much more of your life do you want to waste this way? Because I don’t want to waste any more. I’m done.’

She got up and walked to the window, hugging herself. ‘I know it began with me. I know I changed. When we couldn’t get pregnant. I know you lost your wife when that happened. For a long, long time. After Avery came, too. I will never completely understand what happened to me, and I will always, always feel to blame for it. Always feel guilty about it. But I can’t undo it or erase it. The only thing I can do is move forward.

‘I’ve been trying. I’ve been trying for months now. I got frightened, back in the summer. For the first time – and I can’t really believe it was the first time, I’d been pushing you away for so long – I thought you might leave me. And it scared the hell out of me. I didn’t know if it was just the thought of being left alone, or whether it was you. I’d let things get so bad that I didn’t know if I loved you at all any more. And so I thought about it, Jason. I really, really thought about it. About you and me – us. And all the years. The good ones and the bad ones.

‘I realized I could handle being alone. I’d been functioning like a single parent for years, after all. Shutting you out. But I couldn’t handle being without
you
. But you won’t let me back in, Jason. I’ve been trying for months. You know it. Trying to get back in. Either you’re punishing me. Or you can’t forgive me. Or you just don’t love me any more. You have to tell me which it is. It’s your turn to think, Jason. To really think.’

She came back towards him. He thought she might touch him, but she stopped short of that, hovering beside him. Her voice was quieter now, like her nerve was deserting her. ‘For weeks I’ve been afraid of what might happen if I said this to you. But I can’t do it any more. I can’t keep trying and keep wondering what you’re thinking. I need to know now. If you don’t love me, I don’t blame you. If you can’t forgive me, I don’t think I blame you for that either. But if you’re punishing me, you have to stop now. Enough. Enough.’ She raised her hands in a gesture of surrender. Her eyes implored him.

‘So whose stuff is in the suitcase?’

She sighed deeply. ‘Mine. And Avery’s. We’re driving down to Washington tomorrow. We’re going to stay with Sue. My old college friend.’

‘So you’re leaving me?’

‘I’m not “leaving” you, Jason. It’s just for a few days. I just want you to have space to think. And when I get back, I want you to tell me what you want to do.’

‘And Avery?’

‘I’ve been using Avery as a weapon for long enough. That all stops. Whatever you decide, she’s your daughter, and you’re her father, and I won’t do anything, ever again, to interfere with that. You’re allowed to separate us, in your head, I mean. You don’t have to have me to have Avery. I’m not hiding behind her.’

‘But she’d live with you?’

She saw him wince. Her voice trembled a little when she replied. ‘I hope so. I can’t imagine a life without seeing her every day, Jason.’

Nor could he. The ache had spread, radiating out through his whole chest, and up into his throat.

She picked up the case.

‘You’re going now?’

Kim nodded. ‘I have to. You don’t have to answer me tonight. I’ve had days to think about what I wanted to say to you, and now I’ve just hit you with it all. We’ve forgotten how to talk to each other. You have no idea how to respond to me, do you?’

She was right. He couldn’t form a complete sentence, even in his own head. He didn’t want her to go like this, but he could see that she had to.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry, too. I’m so, so very sorry, Jason.’

She started to leave the room, and he stood up from the bed as she passed, pulling her into him. They stood for a minute, their arms tight around each other, without speaking. He couldn’t remember when he’d last held her that way. Then he released her, and she continued to the doorway.

Without turning round, she said, very softly, ‘I wish I could go back and change it all,’ and then she was gone, and Jason was alone.

Rachael

Rachael was thankful. Thankful for the gentle breeze that made 88 degrees comfortable, thankful for the children’s club, thankful for the room service menu. At this moment, Jacob and Noah were working on their serves with the tennis pro, and Mia was making a princess tiara and wings in the shade with the battalion of smiling nannies that had carried her away after breakfast. And Rachael was eating the most delicious lobster roll on her balcony, washed down with her second glass of crisp, cold Pinot Grigio.

God, her mother had been right. This was absolutely the right thing to have done. Spending Thanksgiving with David was still an untenable suggestion to her. Spending it with her family out on Long Island, as was the tradition, would simply have drawn attention, for her and for the children, to the David‐shaped hole in the family. Her mother had practically made the booking herself. Granted, she hadn’t referred to David at all – acting as though he was on a business trip and Rachael and the children needed temporary diversion. But she’d gone online (Rachael was always slightly surprised at how her mother had embraced the internet – she researched and shopped and downloaded endless photographs) and found this break. Five nights at the Four Seasons, Great Exuma, in the Bahamas. Normally, it wouldn’t have been Rachael’s bag. Too vanilla. Too many women in Lilly Pulitzer shift dresses and men in pastel‐coloured Ralph Lauren polo shirts. Too waspy, too preppy. This was not her tribe.

That was working for the whole experience so far. It made no difference to the children – the nuances and subtleties of the socio‐economics escaped them entirely – but it protected her from unwanted ‘friendly’ advances around the pool and at the breakfast buffet. She wore her wide‐brimmed sun hat, and fashionably huge sunglasses, and a certain unapproachable air. She’d never been the type to make friends with other couples on holiday – that was fine for children but smacked to her, in adults, of a certain uneasiness with each other’s company. What did she know, though, hey? Being the wife of a man who cheated was a new and uncomfortable role for Rachael, and it was making her question so much about herself that she was exhausted just by thinking.

The journey had been hellish. Travelling at Thanksgiving was for the certifiably insane, or those with their own private jets, of which there were several in the small airport at Great Exuma. Foul weather had delayed the plane at La Guardia, making at least a small dent in the four‐hour layover in Miami. Mia had been horribly and suddenly sick on the small plane that had brought them to the islands, and had lain listless and smelly on her lap while Jacob and Noah fought over their DS games in the seats behind, garnering fierce looks from the other passengers, all of whom appeared to be dressed in lime green and sugar pink. She felt like she’d been through a mangle by the time the transfer town car deposited them at the entrance to the resort, and had managed only to smile weakly at the friendly girl serving fruit punch, and to follow the bellboy to their room like a refugee seeking shelter.

The mood of the children had miraculously changed. The maid had spelt out each of their names in small, coloured sponges around the edge of the bathtub, a real crowd pleaser, and there was a small beach bag for each of them in the closet, containing a bucket and spade. They had torn off their foul tempers with their travel clothes, and wrecked the carefully packed suitcases searching for board shorts and bikinis. Rachael had followed them meekly to the pool, sinking gratefully on to the nearest sun lounger. She didn’t remember ever feeling so tired. Rachael didn’t ‘do’ tired. Up at five. Still up at midnight. That was her modus operandi. It seemed to her, lying there, that maybe it had all caught up with her at last. All those years, and all those missing hours of sleep seemed to be demanding to be taken right now. She leant her head back and closed her eyes, just for a minute. She must have fallen asleep, and was awoken perhaps ten minutes later by the loud splash of Noah, without water wings, falling in at the deep end. The lifeguard got to him before she had even stood up, and returned him to her, spluttering and indignant, with a kind smile. Rachael felt the disapproving stares of her fellow sunbathers burn into her more searingly than the sun could ever do. Some people’s faces reflected pity at her – the exhausted single mother, kids out of control.