Considering the absolute anguish that was searing through me, I thought I’d done a pretty good job to get up, get showered and to the supermarket, even if it was three o’clock already. Steph had demanded that we go, insisting that I was wasting away, and that there was nothing left in the cupboards except five spice and soy sauce.
I found myself in the cereal aisle, staring at boxes of Coco Pops. Coco Pops was Teigan’s favourite cereal. Wait, are her favourite. God, even grammar was causing me trauma. She had them every morning for breakfast, apart from Sundays, when she would treat herself to peanut butter on toast with banana on top. The tears started pricking behind my eyes, and my heartbeat quickened. A box. A cardboard box was having this effect on me. I reached out and started piling the cereal into my shopping trolley. If Teigan came home I’d need Coco Pops for her — she’d be upset if she thought I hadn’t bothered. It would look as though I’d given up on her. I wasn’t giving up. I couldn’t. I kept piling the boxes in. Two. Three. Four. Five.
“Suze, stop.”
It was Steph. I let go of the last box as the tears spilled over and ran down my face. My hand shot to my mouth as I broke down into loud, broken sobs. It was the first time I’d let myself fall apart in front of Steph. She put her arms around me as I slid down onto the floor. I was breaking down in the middle of the bloody supermarket, but, frankly, I didn’t care.
The moments that followed were a blur. I know Steph got me out of there and swiftly back to the car. I think she left me in the car while she went in and bought some bits, but I couldn’t be sure. Ten minutes later, I was standing in the doctor’s office, next to the metal fan by the reception desk, shrugging apologetically to the growing queue of patients as Steph ranted on to the medical secretary.
“Seriously, you must have some emergency appointments. Surely it’s a requirement? Or do you just want everyone to end up at the already overwhelmed A&E?” Steph was leaning on the desk, talking furiously with her hands. I hung back, still shaky from my supermarket episode. I wanted to turn the fan off — I was freezing. A cold-to-the-bone chill had settled in. I glanced around at the miserable faces of those waiting and wondered what demons they were facing.
“Look, we have our sit and wait system. She is more than welcome to use that.” The medical secretary gestured towards the already over-filled seats in the waiting room. “It’s from two to four o’clock every day, so you can still join the queue if you like.”
Steph tilted her head back in exasperation. “It’s 3:40 already, and it looks like there are about seventeen bloody people to be seen. My sister can’t sit here for three hours for a ten-minute appointment, for goodness’ sake.”
The secretary shrugged her shoulders. “Well, then, book an appointment for later in the week.”
Steph turned and looked at me, her eyes full of pity. I shoved my hands in my pocket. “Let’s just go, Steph. The frozen food will be defrosting in the car at this rate.”
She made a distinct huff noise. “When’s your next available appointment?”
We’d been in silence since we’d returned to the car, Steph defeated by the system and me by my own mind.
“My friend Leah died,” Steph blurted.
“Leah?” I crinkled my forehead in confusion.
“In Australia,” she sighed. “That’s partly why I’m back. We met at a bartending gig and hit it off right away. She let me move in, though I couldn’t pay the rent. She helped me break off an abusive relationship. Her parents died when she was young, too. She felt like a sister … So when she got the diagnosis …” Steph’s hand flew to her mouth, tears welling up in her eyes. “I watched my best friend die. I couldn’t stay there anymore.”
“Oh God, Steph. I’m so sorry.” I reached out to touch her shoulder. “I had no idea.”
She swiped away the tears, then turned to face me, a determined look on her face. “I lost her, but I won’t lose you and Teigan, too.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, giving her shoulder a squeeze, not sure what else I could possibly say to comfort her. Our family was no stranger to loss. Steph had run to the other side of the world to escape the feeling of loss. And it was loss, in the end, which had brought her back.
I stared out the window as we trudged along in the ring-road traffic. As we approached the roundabout on Ketts Hill, I gazed up towards the road to Mousehold Heath. We’d spent a lot of our early childhood there before Mum had died. It was strange; those memories hadn’t come to me for a long time, but something about Steph’s presence brought them to the surface.
Steph followed my eyeline and smiled. “Mousehold Heath … How many hours do you think we spent there?”
“Weeks, probably.” The memories washed over me. Picnics on our chequered red and blue blanket, with that wicker hamper Mum used to love. Steph as a toddler, stumbling around trying to pull daisies out of the ground, then falling on her bum. Me leaning against Mum as we read a book together, her flowery perfume filling my senses. Dad rarely came to the Mousehold Heath outings, something I was always grateful for. I squeezed my eyes shut as the warm memory was invaded by another. Me lying in bed at night, waiting for the inevitable creak on the stairs, knowing that sooner or later, he would come.
We fell into silence again as we finally arrived back at Caernarvon Road. Relief settled in as I realised I’d soon be safely inside with a cup of tea, away from the outside world.
Steph reversed the car backwards, turning to try and fit into the space. She stopped with a jerk and moved forward again, turning the opposite way, ending up exactly back where she was.
“Seriously, Steph? It’s not that hard.” I wrung my hands together. I just wanted to get inside, where I could fall apart without people staring. “I’m getting out. I’ll start putting the food away.” I grabbed a couple of the bags from the backseat and started walking up towards the front gate. I made up my mind there and then that once I was in, I wouldn’t be coming out again for at least twenty-four hours.
It was only as I got closer that I saw it. A lump, the shape of a small body, covered by a blanket. Right there, on my front doorstep.
Oh God. My brain went into overdrive, imagining Teigan’s precious face under that blanket. Was it her? Was it Teigan? I’d dropped the bags, but couldn’t bring myself to move any closer. I wanted to know, but I was frozen to the spot, knowing that the next moment might change my life forever.
“What are you doing? The food’s all over the floor …” Steph trailed off as she spotted it. Unlike me, she burst into action and ran towards the door.
As she pulled back the blanket, an arm flopped out from the secure bundle of the fabric.
No, God, please no. It couldn’t be. I turned around and bent over, preparing to be sick.
“It’s okay, Suze, it’s OK. It’s not what you think.”
It wasn’t? I spun back around, desperate to see if it really wasn’t what I was terrified of. As I crept closer, I saw that the floppy arm was far too soft to be real. I peered over Steph’s shoulders and saw the dark, almost black hair on the almost comically round head with a piece of red ribbon.
It wasn’t Teigan. It wasn’t even a person. It was a doll.
It was life sized — at least, life sized of a child — and was wearing a gingham dress and little red cotton shoes sewn onto the feet. The big black eyes were creepy — there was no denying that. What was it about creepy dolls? But there was something more unsettling about this lifeless stuffed body.
Someone — God knows who, but whoever they were, they weren’t a friend — had cut the middle of the stomach with a knife. The stuffing had all spilled out, and for added effect, the culprit had dyed the stuffing a blood red. If you were to look briefly, it really did look like someone who had been cut open, their intestines on show for all to see.
Amidst the red stuffing, there was a note. It was written in that same piercing red — they’d clearly enjoyed getting into their theme. I bent down to get a closer look.
“Don’t touch it,” Steph batted my hand away. “You don’t want to mess up any prints.”
I leaned in. I didn’t need to touch it — I could read it from where I was.
This is why you don’t befriend paedophiles.