“Does that mean this cardboard box is filled with old jeans?”

“Is that a trick question?” asked Patrick.

“Why do you keep old jeans?”

“For doing stuff around the house, working in the garden, that sort of thing,” said Patrick in a patient, manly tone.

“OK, but a whole box of them?” Ellen ran a fingertip over the layer of dust on the box. She had a feeling this box had been sitting in Patrick’s garage for years. These jeans would never be used, and he would never throw them out. Her nose tickled and she sneezed.

“Bless you,” said Patrick. “So as I was saying … it’s the last Sunday of the month.”

She looked at the next box. It said “Old Shirts.” She could smell a damp, moldy smell. Actually, she could see a patch of furry green mold growing on the side of the box.

He was a hoarder. She hadn’t known this about him. His house had looked perfectly acceptable when she visited. Very tidy and organized, in fact. All these boxes must have been crammed behind cupboard doors and stacked up to the ceiling in his garage.

Her throat tickled and she sneezed again.

“How many more boxes do you think you’ll be bringing over?” she asked, trying to make it sound like she was just casually interested.

“I’ve barely scratched the surface,” said Patrick cheerfully. “We’ve been in that house for over twenty years. Collected a lot of stuff.”

Ellen felt a rising sense of hysteria.

“Why? Is it bugging you? Obviously this is only temporary. I’m not planning on using your hallway as a permanent storage area, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

He put his hand on her waist.

“You should have driven a lot of this, this … stuff straight to the rubbish tip from your place,” said Ellen and moved slightly so that his hand fell away. “You would never have missed it.”

She recognized that cool, precise voice. It was her mother’s voice. Just recently Julia had said that she found herself speaking more and more like her own mother, and Ellen had said, “There’s no danger of that happening to me.”

Anne had a violent dislike of “stuff.” (She always spat out the word “stuff” like a profanity.) Ellen’s possessions were always disappearing when she was a child. “You hadn’t touched that stuff in weeks,” her mother would say when Ellen discovered some toy or piece of clothing had been donated to the “poor people.” Ellen had always felt envious when she visited friends and saw their kitchen bench tops laden with the detritus of their chaotic family lives, the framed photos on bookshelves overflowing with books, the strawberry-shaped magnets holding up school merit awards and colorful drawings on the refrigerator. Her home, and therefore her life, seemed so sterile in comparison. She equated messiness with love and warmth and those sweet, vague, plump mothers who distractedly offered her peanut butter sandwiches before hurrying back to the stove or the laundry.

On the rare occasions when Anne wasn’t at work and Ellen’s friends visited, her mother would take far too much notice of them, skewering them with her violet eyes, offering lime juice (what kid drinks lime juice?), asking their opinions on current affairs (they didn’t have any opinions, of course, except for Julia, who thought Ellen’s mother was fabulous) and then making sarcastic little jokes they didn’t understand.

Ellen couldn’t believe that she’d just used the word “stuff” in the same context as her mother; it just goes to show how your childhood experiences are imprinted on your subconscious. When she found the time, she would need to do some serious work on this and delve into her true feelings on the matter, or otherwise she’d find herself offering lime juice to her child’s friends one day.

“It is bugging you,” said Patrick. “Look, I promise it will all be gone by the weekend.”

He looked so sweet and apologetic that Ellen felt a rush of love for him and her eyes filled with guilty tears. (Pregnancy hormones! It was quite fascinating observing their impact on her emotions.)

“That’s fine, there’s no rush, I’m just being silly.” She blinked rapidly, and continued down the hallway without looking at the boxes. “What were you saying about Sunday?”

They went into the kitchen, and Patrick put the kettle on. He always put the kettle on the moment they walked into the kitchen, taking it for granted that they would be having a cup of tea. There was something old-fashioned and ceremonial about it, and it reminded her of someone. Who? Of course, it was her grandfather. Her lovely grandfather making tea for her grandmother.

Yes, she did adore Patrick. Thank God. She knew it was silly and unrealistic, but she felt panicky whenever she experienced even a moment’s irritation with him. They were having a baby together. She had to remain vigilant; any cracks in their relationship had to be patched up immediately. It was absolutely vital. This child, her child, was going to grow up with a mother and a father.

“So what were you saying about this Sunday?” she said again, as Patrick placed the cup of tea in front of her.

This Sunday she was meeting her father for the first time. Her stomach clenched on cue as the thought crossed her mind. It was impossible to pretend that she didn’t care or that she wasn’t nervous. Her body gave it away every time she thought about it.

“It’s the last Sunday of the month,” said Patrick. He turned away to the refrigerator. “Have we got any crumpets?” He spoke with his back to her as he burrowed through her refrigerator shelves. “Oh good, here they are. So, I wondered if you’d like to come along with us. Whole-meal? Why ruin a good crumpet by making it whole-meal?”

“What are you talking about?” said Ellen. He was going to eat all the crumpets now and she wouldn’t have any for her morning tea tomorrow. Also, he wasn’t making any sense. “Why do you keep saying ‘the last Sunday of the month’ like it means something to me?”

Patrick looked up with surprise as he put the last two crumpets into her toaster. “You know—on the last Sunday of the month, Jack and I always visit Colleen’s parents for lunch. In the mountains.”

“You still visit Colleen’s parents?” said Ellen confusedly. “Every month?”

“They’re Jack’s grandparents,” said Patrick. “We always stop at Colleen’s grave along the way.”