‘Beautiful day!’ called out a man who was sitting on his front porch drinking tea. Cecilia knew his face vaguely from church.

‘Gorgeous!’ she called back warmly.

The man ahead of them with the kite stopped. He pulled a phone from his pocket and held it to his ear.

‘That’s not a man.’ Polly straightened. ‘That’s Mr Whitby!’

Rachel drove robotically towards home, trying to keep her mind completely empty of thoughts.

She stopped at a red light and looked at the time on the dashboard clock. It was ten o’clock. At this time twenty-eight years ago, Janie would have been at school and Rachel was probably ironing her dress for her appointment with Toby Murphy. The bloody dress that Marla had convinced her to buy because it showed off her legs.

Just seven minutes late. It probably made no difference. She would never know.

‘We won’t be taking any further action.’ She heard again the prim voice of Detective-Sergeant Strout. She saw Connor Whitby’s frozen face when she paused the video. She thought of the unmistakable guilt in his eyes.

He did it.

She screamed. An ugly, blood-curdling scream that reverberated around the car. She beat her fists just once on the steering wheel. It both frightened and embarrassed her.

The lights changed. She put her foot on the accelerator. Was today the worst anniversary yet, or was it always this bad? It was probably always this bad. It was so easy to forget how bad things were. Like winter. Like the flu. Like childbirth.

She could feel the sun on her face. It was a beautiful day, like the day Janie died. The streets were deserted. Nobody appeared to be about. What did people do on Good Friday?

Rachel’s mother used to do the Stations of the Cross. Would Janie have stayed a Catholic? Probably not.

Don’t think about the woman Janie would have been.

Think nothing. Think nothing. Think nothing.

When they took Jacob to New York, there would be nothing. It would be like death. Every day would feel as bad as this. Don’t think about Jacob either.

Her eyes followed a squall of fluttering red leaves like tiny frantic birds.

Marla said she always thought of Janie whenever she saw a rainbow. And Rachel said, ‘Why?’

The empty road unfurled in front of her and the sun brightened. She squinted and lowered the sun visor. She always forgot her sunglasses.

There was somebody out and about after all.

She grabbed hold of the distraction. It was a man. He was standing on the sidewalk holding a brightly coloured balloon. It looked like a fish. Like the fish in Finding Nemo. Jacob would love that balloon.

The man was talking on a mobile phone, looking up at his balloon.

It wasn’t a balloon. It was a kite.

‘I’m sorry. We can’t meet you after all,’ said Tess.

‘That’s all right,’ said Connor. ‘Another time.’ The reception was crystal clear. She could hear the very weight and timbre of his voice, deeper than in person, a bit gravelly. She pressed the phone to her ear, as if she could wrap his voice around her.

‘Where are you?’ she asked.

‘Standing on a footpath carrying a fish kite.’

She felt a flood of regret, and also plain, childlike disappointment, as if she’d missed a birthday party because of a piano lesson. She wanted to sleep with him one more time. She didn’t want to sit in her mother’s chilly house having a complicated, painful conversation with her husband. She wanted to run around her old school oval in the sunshine with a fish kite. She wanted to be falling in love, not trying to fix a broken relationship. She wanted to be someone’s first choice, not their second.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.

‘You don’t need to be sorry.’

There was a pause.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘My husband is on his way here.’

‘Ah.’

‘Apparently he and Felicity are over before it’s even begun.’

‘So I guess we are too.’ He didn’t make it sound like a question.

She could see Liam playing in the front garden. She’d told him that Will was on his way. He was racing back and forth across the yard, tipping first the hedge and then the fence, as if he was in training for some life and death event.

‘I don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s just that, with Liam, you see, I have to at least try. At least give it a go.’ She thought of Will and Felicity sitting on the plane from Melbourne, hands gripped, faces stoic. For f**k’s sake.

‘Of course you do.’ He sounded so warm and lovely. ‘You don’t need to explain.’

‘I should never have –’

‘Please don’t regret it.’

‘Okay.’

‘Tell him if he treats you bad again, I’ll break his knees.’

‘Yes.’

‘Seriously, Tess. Don’t give him any more chances.’

‘No.’

‘And if things don’t work out. Well. You know. Keep my application on file.’

‘Connor, someone will –’

‘Don’t do that,’ he said sharply. He tried to soften his voice. ‘No worries. I told you, I’ve got chicks lining the streets for me.’

She laughed.

‘I should let you go,’ he said, ‘if this bloke of yours is on his way.’

She could hear his disappointment so clearly now. It made him sound abrupt, almost aggressive, and part of her wanted to keep him on the line, to flirt with him, to make sure that the last thing he said was gentle and sexy, and then she could be the one to put an end to the conversation, so that she could file these last few days away in her memory under the category that suited her. (What was that category? ‘Fun flings where nobody got hurt’?)

But he was entitled to be abrupt, and she’d already exploited him enough.

‘Okay. Well. Bye.’

‘Bye, Tess. Take care.’

‘Mr Whitby!’ shouted Polly.

‘Oh, my god. Mum, make her stop!’ Isabel lowered her head and hid her eyes.

‘Mr Whitby!’ screeched Polly.

‘He’s too far away to hear you,’ sighed Isabel.

‘Darling, leave him alone. He’s talking on the phone,’ said Cecilia.

‘Mr Whitby! It’s me! Hello! Hello!’

‘It’s out of his work hours,’ commented Esther. ‘He’s not obliged to talk to you.’