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

Chinese-American man who is dressed like a schoolboy in a baseball cap, blue shorts and pressed shirt with a canvas USPS bag over one shoulder. He flips up the neighbours’ mailbox flag, raises a hand to her in greeting and walks past the car. She wonders whether she could ask him to help her carry in the flat-pack bedside table she’s bought for Joe. But she isn’t yet at the obvious stage of pregnancy and he might be upset to be asked.
    Since the mock-Tudor house has no mailbox, he always tosses letters onto the porch. As she bends to pick them up, her head spins. There is a Crate & Barrel catalogue addressed to a former tenant; a letter from the IRS, addressed to Dr G. Gallo; a coupon booklet; a couple of letters from Citizens Bank; and a large padded envelope for Greg, which rattles. She hesitates, and then she rips it open. Four large pill bottles tumble onto the doormat. Each has a tiny orange flame logo, and a name:
    Dr Vaus Energizing Complex
Dr Vaus Biohacker Mix
Dr Vaus Corsitol Balance
Dr Vaus Tissue Repair
    She peers into the envelope and pulls out a card.
    Tissue repair for that hamstring – the others for your sanity and success.
Dr V x
    The writing is large and definite. She reads it again, her eyes lingering on the kiss. A colleague? An old friend from medical school? He hasn’t mentioned any old friends, and he would never order vitamins. Greg considers most dietary supplements to be snake oil.
    She puts the bottles back in the envelope and goes back out to the car. At the far end of the street she sees a figure hurrying away – a slight and androgynous body, in dark clothes, moving fast, as if falling forwards, hooded head bent. She sees a flash of dark red – a scarf, hair? – as the figure turns the corner and vanishes onto the bigger road. She shields her eyes against the sun, but the running person has gone.
    Back at the car, leaning into the boot for more shopping bags, she notices that Helena and Josh’s garage door is open. Both their cars are gone. She can see recycling bins, bikes, a tub of footballs, scooters, ski boots on a shelf, a stack of flattened cardboard boxes. Maybe a burglar overrode the electric mechanism and winched the door open. She peers down the driveway.
    She should probably go and close the door – or at least call them to tell them it’s open. But it has been over a month now, and she still hasn’t actually spoken to Helena, let alone exchanged phone numbers.
    There is a team of gardeners trimming shrubs in a front yard somewhere, but other than this, as always, the street is empty. The mailman has vanished. She thinks about the thin figure hurrying away. It is possible that it came from the garage. But calling the police might be excessive. The neighbours might have just forgotten to shut the door.
    If she can get their surnames, she can google them and perhaps call one of them at work. She crosses the lawn to their mailbox. The hatch creaks as she eases the letters out: the same Crate & Barrel catalogue, and one for a clothing company called Athleta, with a muscular woman in sports gear on the cover. She slides them back into the mailbox and looks at the remaining envelopes.
    Dr Joshua Feldman
.
    So he’s a doctor, too.
    She flips to a couple of white envelopes. Both are addressed to Dr H. Vaus-Feldman.
    She stares at the name.
Dr Vaus
.
    So it is Helena who sent Greg the vitamins. Helena is Dr V. But the vitamin bottles were mailed and not dropped round. Perhaps she didn’t want to knock on the door and hand over her little gift for Greg.
    She shoves the mail back in the box and goes back to the Volvo, seizing the bedside table and hauling it out of the boot. It isn’t too heavy, but she hasn’t quite got the weight balanced evenly and she feels the strain down one side of her body. She drops it on the porch. She is sweating and breathing fast. She feels a wave of sickness, and her head spins.
    She thinks about Greg’s response when she asked him this morning