The Perfect Neighbors Read Online Free Page A

banana, then?” she said. Melanie wouldn’t get a break for lunch until almost noon. She had to eat something.
    â€œI said I’m not hungry.”
    Gigi flinched. If her husband routinely spoke to her in that tone, she’d divorce him. If a friend did, she’d cut off contact. Only Melanie, with her sad eyes and defiant expression, could heap emotional abuse on her mother.
    Still, she couldn’t let Melanie get away with acting like a brat.
    â€œWatch your tone,” Gigi said, but when she caught a glimpse of Melanie’s face, she regretted snapping back. Her daughter was clearly in pain.
    When had Melanie’s kohl-rimmed eyes changed? They looked to Gigi like black mussel shells. There was something in the center of those eyes reminiscent of the glistening fragility of a pearl, but try as she might, Gigi couldn’t crack through the hard exterior and reach it.
    Melanie grabbed her backpack off the kitchen table and shoved her binder inside.
    â€œYou don’t have to be at school for almost an hour,” Gigi pointed out.
    â€œRaven is picking me up.”
    Raven. It couldn’t possibly be a real name, could it? Gigi wasn’t even sure if Raven was a girl or a boy, and an early glimpse of him/her hadn’t helped clear things up. Raven hid behind a sweep of dark hair and seemed incapable of smiling. Gigi wanted to ask Melanie, but was afraid of her reaction.
    Melanie was almost out the door. She hadn’t eaten. She looked tired. She was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and black jeans and the mercury was expected to reach 80 today.
    â€œHoney? Do you want to change your shirt? It’s supposed to get pretty hot.”
    â€œGod! Can you just stop nagging me?” The door slammed on Melanie’s final word.
    Gigi sank into a chair, blinking hard. Felix nudged her hand with his cold nose and she curled an arm around him, grateful for the comfort.
    Gigi knew that whenever she reached out to touch her daughter, or asked Melanie to put away her phone and talk, Melanie viewed Gigi as a giant chicken relentlessly pecking at her. She could see it in the way Melanie shrank from her, or exited a room moments after Gigi entered.
    Whenever she spoke to Melanie, all her daughter heard was this: Peck, peck, peck .
    Why couldn’t she hear what Gigi was really saying? I love you, I love you, I love you.

----
    Chapter Three
----
    Before Newport Cove
    WHEN HER DAUGHTER, BREE, was just seven months old, Tessa called 911 for the first time.
    It was a rainy day, and the house had felt stuffy, so Tessa had walked upstairs to open a window. She’d left Bree on the living room rug, encircled by toys.
    She’d been gone for sixty seconds, she’d insisted later. Ninety at most. She couldn’t get the timeline exactly straight, though. Had she paused to pick up Harry’s dirty socks off the bathroom floor and toss them in the hamper, or had she done that earlier in the day? She might’ve shaken out the comforter and smoothed it over the sheets instead of leaving it crumpled. An unmade bed had always nagged at Tessa.
    The truth was, she had no idea how long she’d left Bree alone. Jagged patches of time had begun to disappear from her memory, like sinkholes forming in the fog of her exhaustion. Bree hadn’t slept through the night, not even once, since coming home from the hospital. Bree was fussy. Sensitive. Spirited. Whatever the politically correct term was nowadays. Instead of nursing contentedly, like all the other babies in their Mommy and Me class, Bree always took a few sips, then yanked herself away from Tessa’s breast as if she’d been scalded.
    â€œIt must be something in your diet,” a lactation consultant had said, looking at Tessa with accusing eyes. “Are you eating a lot of broccoli? Chocolate? Caffeine?”
    Tessa had mutely shaken her head at each fresh charge. She wasn’t eating much of anything other than toast and