“Just out, got a few things to do.” Dan kissed Cat on top of her head. “Are you O.K., babe?”

“I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine.”

Had there been a sharp edge to Gemma’s tone? There was something uncharacteristic about her asking Dan where he was going. Cat looked at Gemma, who was sitting cross-legged on her chair, twisting a long lock of hair around her finger. Did she know something? Had she got more sordid details from the locksmith about the one-night stand that Cat didn’t know about? Did Cat even care? It all seemed irrelevant and childish now. She didn’t even care if Gemma kept going out with the brother. What did it matter? When it came down to it, what did anything really matter?

“Gemma,” she said.

“Yes?” Gemma nearly dropped her slice of bun in her eagerness to be accommodating. She picked up the milk hopefully. “Milk?”

“Just forget what I said on Christmas Day. You know. About Charlie. I should never have said that. I was upset.”

There. Now she had redeemed herself for wanting to kick her.

“Oh. Well. That’s O.K. I mean, who knows? You know, my relationships never seem to last longer than a few months these days. So probably we will break up but it’s all going well at the moment, so if you—”

“Gemma?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up. You’re babbling.”

“Sorry.”

Gemma’s face closed down, and she picked up her teacup and slurped. “Sorry,” she said again.

Oh God. Cat breathed deeply. Now she was back to feeling evil again. She would have been a bad mother anyway. A sarcastic, harping, carping mother.

“Did Nana Kettle call you?” asked Lyn.

“Yes.” With enormous effort Cat managed to make her voice sound like a normal person’s. “She told me Mother Nature knew best.”

Maxine gave a derisive snort. “Rubbish. Did she tell you that God needed another rose in his garden, too?”

“No.”

“That’s what she said to me when I lost my baby.”

Lyn put down her teacup quickly. “I didn’t know you ever had a miscarriage, Mum!”

“Well, I did.”

“When?” Lyn obviously thought she should have been approached first for authorization.

“You girls were only three.” Maxine stood up and refilled the kettle at the sink, her back to them. Her daughters took the opportunity to exchange raised eyebrows and surprised mouths. “You all knew I was pregnant. You used to put your little faces up to my stomach and pat me and chatter away to the baby.”

She turned back around to face them, the kettle in her hand. “Actually, I remember you were the most interested, Cat. You used to sit there on the lounge whispering into my stomach for ages. It was the only time I could get a cuddle from you.”

“We could have had a little sister or brother,” said Gemma in wonder.

“It was an accident, of course,” said Maxine. “At first I was horrified. I even thought about an abortion, which would have had your father at confession every week for a year. But then I got used to the idea. I guess the hormones kicked in. And I thought, imagine, just one baby. I could do everything right, with one baby. Of course, it was stupid thinking. You three were toddlers. It wasn’t like I had any spare time.”

Lyn said, “I can’t believe we didn’t know this, Mum.”

“Yes, well, I lost the baby at thirteen weeks.” Maxine flicked the switch on the kettle. “There was no reason to upset you. I just stopped talking about the baby—and you all seemed to forget. You were only babies yourselves, of course. So.”

Cat looked at her mother, in her stylish Country Road slacks and blouse. Thin, brisk, and elegant. Short red hair, cut, colored, and styled at the hairdresser every three weeks. She would have been only twenty-four when she had her miscarriage, just a girl, a kid. It occurred to Cat to wonder if she would have liked Maxine if they’d been at school together. Maxine Leonard with her long swishing red hair, her long, long legs, and short, short miniskirts. “Your mum,” Nana Leonard used to say, “was a little bit wild,” and they all stared, thrilled, at the old photos. Really, Nana? Mum? Our mum?

She probably would have been friends with her. Cat’s friends were always the bad girls.

“Were you upset?” she asked. (Could this be the most personal question she’d ever asked her mother?) “Were you upset about losing the baby?”

“Yes, of course. Very. And your father—well. It wasn’t a very good time in my life. I remember I used to cry when I was hanging out the washing.” Maxine smiled and looked embarrassed. “I don’t know why. Maybe it was the only chance I got to think.”

“Ah.” A sob of involuntary grief rose in Cat’s chest. She took a deep breath and tried to stop it. If she gave in to it, she might fall to her knees and start wailing and keening like a complete lunatic.

Maxine came up behind her and put a tentative hand against her shoulder.

“Darling, you’re perfectly entitled to grieve for your baby.”

Cat turned in her chair and for a fraction of a second pressed her face against her mother’s stomach.

She stood up. “Back in a sec.”

“Don’t, Lyn,” she heard Maxine say. “Let her be.”

She walked into the bathroom and turned on both taps at full blast and sat down on the edge of the bath and cried. For the baby she didn’t know and for the memory she didn’t have of a girl standing at the clothesline in a suburban backyard, a plastic clothes peg in her mouth and tears running down her face.

She’d bet she didn’t stop pegging those clothes for even a second.

The sun on her face woke her. They’d forgotten to close the blinds last night. “Good morning, sweetie.” Cat kept her eyes closed and reached down to touch her stomach.

Then she remembered and misery flattened her body, pressing her against her bed.

This was worse than Dan sleeping with Angela.

This was worse than finding out about Lyn.

This was worse than anything.

She was overreacting. She was being selfish. Women had miscarriages all the time. They didn’t make such a fuss. They just got on with it.

And far worse things happened to people. Far, far worse.

Little children died. Sweet-faced little children were raped and murdered.