“Really?” Madeline held the spray can aloft. “Didn’t we fix that?”

“Mum, you can’t fix the hole in the ozone layer!” Abigail rolled her eyes with contempt as she ate her homemade, preservative-free, flaxseed-and-whatever-the-hell-else-was-in-it muesli. These days whenever she came home from her father’s place, she got out of his car, weighed down with food, as if she’d been provisioned for a trip to the wilderness.

“I didn’t mean we fixed the whole ozone layer, I meant the thing with aerosol cans. The, umm, the something-or-others.” Madeline held up the hair-spray can and frowned at it, trying to read the writing on the side, but the type was too small. Madeline had once had a boyfriend who thought she was cute and stupid, and it was true, she was cute and stupid the whole time she was with him. Living with a teenage daughter was exactly the same.

“The CFCs,” said Ed. “Aerosol cans don’t have CFCs anymore.”

“Whatever,” said Abigail.

“The twins think their mum is going to win the mothers race today,” said Chloe as Madeline began to French-braid her green hair. “But I told them you were a trillion times faster.”

Madeline laughed. She couldn’t imagine Celeste running in a race. She’d probably run in the wrong direction, or not even notice the starter gun had gone off. She was always so distracted.

“Bonnie will probably win,” said Abigail. “She’s a really fast runner.”

“Bonnie?” said Madeline.

“Ahem,” warned Ed.

“What?” snapped Abigail. “Why shouldn’t she be fast?”

“I just thought she was more into yoga and things like that. Non-cardio things,” said Madeline. She returned to Chloe’s hair.

“She’s fast. I’ve seen her in a race with Dad at the beach, and Bonnie is, like, much younger than you, Mum.”

Ed chuckled. “You’re a brave girl, Abigail.”

Madeline laughed. “One day, Abigail, when you’re thirty, I’m going to repeat back to you some of the things you’ve said to me over the past year—”

Abigail threw down her spoon. “I’m just saying don’t get upset if you don’t win!”

“Yes, yes, OK, thank you,” said Madeline soothingly. She and Ed had laughed at Abigail, when she hadn’t meant to be funny, and she didn’t quite understand why it was funny, so she now felt embarrassed, and therefore enraged.

“I mean, I don’t know why you feel so competitive with her,” said Abigail viciously. “It’s not like you want to be married to Dad anymore, do you, so what’s your problem?”

“Abigail,” said Ed. “I don’t like your tone. Speak nicely to your mother.”

Madeline shook her head slightly at Ed.

“God!” Abigail pushed away her breakfast bowl and stood up.

Oh, calamity, thought Madeline. There goes the morning. Chloe swiveled her head away from Madeline’s hands so she could watch her sister.

“I can’t even speak now!” Abigail’s whole body trembled. “I can’t even be myself in my own home! I can’t relax!”

Madeline was reminded of Abigail’s first-ever tantrum, when she was nearly three. Madeline had thought that she was never going to have a tantrum, all due to her good parenting. So it had been such a shock to see Abigail’s little body whipped about by violent emotion. (She’d wanted to keep eating a chocolate frog she’d dropped on the supermarket floor. Madeline should just have let the poor kid eat it.)

“Abigail, there’s no need to be so dramatic. Just calm down,” said Ed.

Madeline thought, Thank you, darling, because that always works, doesn’t it, telling a woman to calm down.

“Mu-uuum! I can only find one shoe!” hollered Fred from down the hallway.

“Just a minute, Fred!” called back Madeline.

Abigail shook her head slowly, as if truly flabbergasted by the outrageous treatment she was forced to endure.

“You know what, Mum?” she said without looking at Madeline. “I was going to tell you this later, but I’ll tell you now.”

“MU-UM!” yelled Fred.

“Mummy is busy!” screeched Chloe.

“Look under your bed!” shouted Ed.

Madeline’s ears rang. “What is it, Abigail?”

“I’ve decided I want to live full-time with Dad and Bonnie.”

“What did you say?” said Madeline, but she’d heard.

She’d feared it for so long, and everyone kept saying, No, no, that would never happen. Abigail would never do that. She needs her mother. But Madeline had known for months it was coming. She knew it would happen. She wanted to scream at Ed: Why did you tell her to calm down?

“I just feel it’s better for me,” said Abigail. “Spiritually.” She’d stopped trembling now and calmly took her bowl from the table over to the sink. Lately she’d begun walking the same way Bonnie walked, back ballet-dancer straight, eyes on some spiritual point on the horizon.

Chloe’s face crumpled. “I don’t want Abigail to live with her dad!” Tears spilled copiously. The color on the green lightning shapes on her cheeks began to run.

“MU-UM!” shouted Fred. The neighbors would think he was being murdered.

Ed dropped his forehead into his hand.

“If that’s what you really want,” said Madeline. Abigail turned from the sink and met her eyes, and for a moment it was just the two of them, like it was for all those years. Madeline and Abigail. The Mackenzie girls. When life was quiet and simple. They used to eat breakfast in bed together before school, side by side, pillows behind their backs, their books on their laps. Madeline held her gaze. Remember, Abigail? Remember us?

Abigail turned away. “That’s what I want.”

Stu: I was there at the athletics carnival. The mothers race was f**king hilarious. Excuse my French. But some of those women—you’d think it was the Olympics. Seriously.

Samantha: Oh rubbish. Ignore my husband. Nobody was taking it seriously. I was laughing so hard, I got a stitch.

• • •

Nathan was at the carnival. Madeline couldn’t believe it when she ran into him outside the sausage sizzle stall, hand in hand with Skye. This morning of all mornings.

Not many dads came to the athletics carnival, unless they were stay-at-home dads or their children were especially sporty, but here was Madeline’s ex-husband taking the time off work to be there, wearing a striped polo shirt and shorts, baseball cap and sunglasses, the quintessential Good Daddy uniform.