She sent her a private message: Hey! What are you doing up so late? You’ve got tutoring tomorrow! Go to bed! Mum xxx.

She noticed that her heart was beating after she pressed Send. As if she’d broken a rule. But she was Abigail’s mother! She still had the right to tell her to go to bed.

Abigail answered immediately: Dad has canceled the tutor. He’s going to tutor me instead. Go to bed yourself! x

“He what?” said Madeline to the computer screen. “He f**king what?”

Nathan had canceled the math tutor. He’d made a unilateral decision about Abigail’s education. The very same man who had missed school plays and parent-teacher interviews and athletics carnivals and preparing a trembly little five-year-old for show-and-tell every Monday morning and projects on big sheets of cardboard and projects that needed to be submitted for the first time online with log-in instructions that didn’t make any sense and homework forgotten until late the night before and covering books with contact paper and exam nerves and the meeting with that lovely teacher with the crazy jewelry who said all those years ago that Abigail would probably always struggle with math so give her all the support she needs.

How DARE he?

She dialed Nathan’s number without a moment’s thought, trembling with righteous rage. There was no way she could wait till the morning. She needed to yell at him now, right now, before her head exploded.

He answered with slurred, sleepy surprise: “Hello?”

“You canceled Abigail’s math tutor? You just canceled without even checking with me first!?”

There was silence.

“Nathan?” said Madeline sharply.

She heard him clear his throat. “Maddie.” He sounded wide awake now. “Did you seriously ring me at midnight to talk to me about Abigail’s math tutor?”

It was an entirely different tone of voice than the one he normally used. For years her interactions with Nathan had reminded her of dealing with an unctuous, eager-to-please salesman working on commission only. Now that he had Abigail, he thought he was her equal. He didn’t need to be apologetic anymore. He could be irritable. He could be like a regular ex-husband.

“We’re all asleep,” he continued. “Could it seriously not have waited until tomorrow morning? Skye and Bonnie are both very light—”

“You’re not all asleep!” said Madeline. “Your fourteen-year-old daughter is wide awake and on the Internet! Is there any supervision in that house? Do you have any idea what she’s doing right now?”

Madeline could hear the soft, melodious tones of Bonnie saying something sweet and understanding in the background.

“I’ll go check on her,” said Nathan. He sounded more conciliatory now. “I thought she was asleep. And look, she wasn’t getting anywhere with that math tutor. He’s just a kid. I can do a better job than him. But you’re right, of course I should have talked to you about it. I meant to talk to you about it. It just slipped my mind.”

“That tutor was making real progress with her,” said Madeline.

She and Abigail had tried out two other tutors first before they’d gotten Sebastian. The kid got such good results, he had a waiting list of students. Madeline had begged him to squeeze in Abigail.

“No, he wasn’t,” said Nathan. “But let’s talk about it when I’m not half-asleep.”

“Fabulous. Look forward to it. Will you be letting me know of any other changes you’ve made to Abigail’s schedule? Just curious.”

“I’m hanging up now,” said Nathan.

He hung up.

Madeline threw her mobile phone so hard against the wall it bounced back, landing faceup on the carpet, right at her feet, so she could see the shattered screen, like the sharp reprimand of an adult to a child.

Stu: Look, I didn’t think poor old Nathan was a bad bloke. I saw him a bit about the school. The place is overrun by women, and half the time they’re all so busy rabbiting away to each other, it’s hard to get a word in edgewise. So I’d always made a point of talking to the other dads. I remember one morning Nathan and I were having a good old natter about something when Madeline comes stalking by on her high heels and, jeez Louise—if looks could kill!

Gabrielle: I couldn’t stand to live in the same suburb as my ex-husband. If our kids attended the same school, I’d probably end up murdering him. I don’t know how they thought that arrangement could work. It was just crazy.

Bonnie: It was not crazy. We wanted to be as close as possible to Abigail, and then we happened to find the perfect house in the area. What’s crazy about that?

49.

Five Days Before the Trivia Night

It was Monday morning just before the bell rang, and Jane was on her way back from the school library where she’d returned two books Ziggy had forgotten to take back. She’d left him happily swinging along the monkey bars with the twins and Chloe. At least Madeline and Celeste weren’t banning their children from playing with Ziggy.

After she dropped the books off, Jane was staying on at school to help out listening to the children practice their reading. She and Lily’s dad, Stu, were the Monday-morning parent volunteers.

As she came out of the library she could see two of the Blond Bobs standing outside the music room, very deep in important, loudly confidential conversation.

She heard one of them say, “Which one is the mother?”

The other one said, “She sort of flies under the radar. She’s really young. Renata thought she was the nanny.”

“Wait, wait! I know the one! She wears her hair like this, right?” The Blond Bob pulled back her blond locks in an exaggeratedly tight ponytail, and at that moment her eyes met Jane’s and widened. She dropped her hands like a child caught misbehaving.

The other woman, who was facing away from Jane, continued talking. “Yes! That’s her! Well, apparently her kid, this Ziggy, has been secretly bullying poor little Amabella. I’m talking really vicious stuff— What?”

The first Blond Bob made frantic head-jerking movements.

“What’s wrong? Oh!”

The woman turned her head and saw Jane. Her face turned pink.

“Good morning!” she said. Normally someone so high on the school parent hierarchy would nod vaguely and graciously at Jane as she walked by, a royal nod for a commoner.

“Hi,” said Jane.