The Other Child by Lucy Atkins Read Free Book Online Page A

belly, ‘Joey? Breakfast!’
    His prize event is on the calendar; she shouldn’t have forgotten. She can’t possibly resent him for going away this time. This is a big deal for him. It is odd that he doesn’t seem more excited. But perhaps the situation with the child who died is overshadowing some of the glory. She wonders, suddenly, whether he might have made a surgical mistake, misjudged something, perhaps tried a risky technique.
    ‘Joey? Come on, you’re going to be late for school.’ Joe appears at the top of the landing and comes downstairs, very slowly, one step at a time. His face is as white as the walls.
    ‘Hey, what’s up, love?’
    ‘I’m sick.’
    ‘Oh dear, poor darling. What’s wrong?’ She reaches out and feels his forehead. It is perfectly cool.
    ‘I have a bad fever.’
    ‘I don’t think you do, lovey, or you’d be hot.’
    ‘I am hot. I have a bad tummy ache too.’
    ‘Do you?’
    ‘And a headache.’ He puts both hands up to the sides of his head, as if pressing on an invisible force field. ‘And I might be going to throw up.’
    ‘OK, well, luckily we happen to have one of the world’s top children’s doctors in our kitchen right now. He can take a look and see what’s wrong with you.’
    A look of panic flits across Joe’s face.
    ‘Greg,’ she smiles at him. ‘It’s only Greg.’
    ‘Actually, I might just be hungry,’ he says.
    He looks small and sacrificial as he walks away down the narrow corridor and through the arch into the kitchen, where Greg is packing up his papers.
    ‘Hey, buddy,’ she hears Greg say in a cheerful voice. ‘How’s it going?’
    ‘Fine,’ says Joe.
    ‘You want me to make French toast? I have exactly fifteen minutes – that’s just about time to rustle up the house specialty with extra maple syrup.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘Good man.’
    Whatever Greg feels about the death of the four-year-old, or about strangers sending him notes, he is doing a good job of masking it. And then she remembers something he once told her. ‘Every surgeon has a graveyard in his brain,’ he said. ‘You forget the names of the ones that live but the names of the ones who die are engraved on your mind forever.’
    Perhaps it works the other way round too. She wonders how many grieving parents are walking around out there with Greg’s name etched onto their brains.

Chapter Five
     
    All morning, since she drank the latte Greg made her, she has had a lurching on–off queasiness, and the ground is no longer steady beneath her feet. Deep in her pelvis she can feel little stabbing sensations, as if the baby has grown spines. Perhaps the milk was off.
    After she’d got Joe off to school and Greg had left for the hospital, the doorbell rang. Sandra Schechter was on the porch in tennis whites.
    ‘Hey, Tess! How’s it going? Listen, I’m in kind of a hurry right now, but we’re having a potluck in October and I wanted to ask if you and Greg and Joe could join us? We’d love to have you over and introduce you to some of the other neighbours.’
    Another wave of queasiness spread through her and she swallowed, pressing her hands on her belly. ‘That sounds great, thanks.’ She had no idea what a potluck was.
    ‘Well, fabulous!’ Sandra started to move off again down the path, calling over her shoulder, ‘I’ll send you an evite!’
    The nausea continued as she went round the supermarket. Usually she found it uncomfortable to stand doing nothing while the person on the till put the groceries into paper bags, but today she was glad it worked like this because her limbs felt weak, her hands clammy and there was a possibility that she was actually going to throw up.
    Now, as she grabs the brown-paper grocery bags from the boot, she wishes the supermarket person’s job extended to carrying the shopping home and unloading it into kitchen cupboards. The late September leaves are turning golden, but the air feels too close and warm. The postman appears, a middle-aged