If only she could read his mind. She glanced at his inscrutable profile.

Of course, there was a way.

Most nights Patrick still asked for a relaxation exercise before they went to sleep. It was part of their routine. He trusted her completely. She could easily take him into a deep trance and ask him to tell her how he felt about Colleen, and then use a posthypnotic suggestion so that he would never remember what she’d asked.

But that would be wrong. Totally unethical. She couldn’t go poking about his mind without his permission. It would be like reading his diary.

And it would be unfair because he couldn’t do the same thing to her. She wouldn’t want him finding out that she still had complicated feelings about Jon.

So of course she would never do such a thing. It was the sort of thing Danny would do to a girlfriend if he were ever in a relationship.

She couldn’t believe she’d even allowed such a thought to cross her mind. It wasn’t like her. She was becoming increasingly disappointed with herself lately. She wasn’t nearly as compassionate or moral or as patient a person as she’d always thought herself to be.

But goodness me it was tempting.

“Dad?” said Jack suddenly from the backseat.

Ellen started guiltily.

“After we’ve finished lunch, can we go for another bushwalk to that same place we went last time?”

“Sure,” said Patrick. “Oh, actually, no, mate, we might have to leave straightaway because I need to go back into the office this afternoon for a few hours.”

Jack groaned.

“Next time,” said Patrick.

“You’re going into the office this afternoon?” said Ellen.

Patrick glanced over at her. “Oh yeah, sorry, didn’t I tell you? I’ve got to catch up on some paperwork. I’ve just been swamped.”

So presumably that meant she would be the one taking care of Jack. She’d been planning to catch up with Julia this afternoon. It had been ages since she’d seen her, and Julia was looking forward to hearing all about the visit to Colleen’s parents. She could hardly speak freely if she had Jack with her.

“So I’m looking after Jack this afternoon?” she double-checked.

“Well, he’s big enough, he doesn’t need a babysitter anymore, do you, mate?” said Patrick. “He’ll just do his own thing. Actually, you’ve got some homework to finish off, haven’t you, Jack?”

Ellen suppressed a sigh. Since Patrick and Jack had moved into her house, she’d experienced the pleasure of homework supervision for the first time. It was awful. It was so hard to get Jack to just sit upright at the table with his pencil in hand and his books open in front of him. He would half slide off his chair, resting his cheek on the table like he was ill, or else he’d keep running off, disappearing on unexplained errands as they occurred to him.

She was still finding her way with Jack. It wasn’t like he was rebelling against her, or treating her like a wicked stepmother. He was perfectly friendly and relaxed with Ellen; she was the one who felt on edge. She noticed that her voice got terribly bouncy whenever she talked to him. It reminded her of being fourteen and in love with the one-legged boy at the neighboring school. Giles was kind to her, as he was to all the girls who adored him, and the patient, distracted expression he got on his face while Ellen babbled on at the railway station, trying desperately to make some sort of impression before the 3:45 train arrived, was identical to the one on Jack’s face. It said: I couldn’t care less really, but I’m a nice person, and I don’t want to hurt your feelings, so I’m just going to keep smiling until you stop talking.

And it was even worse when she tried to play it cool, to act as if she didn’t care what Jack thought of her, because he was so self-contained, so busy with his own life, that he really did just completely forget about her existence, which was exactly what used to happened with Giles too.

Well, this was what she had signed up for. She’d loved the idea of a stepchild, of an instant family. She should be happy that Patrick was treating her like a wife and taking it for granted that she would be in charge of homework this afternoon. She should be focusing all her attention on poor little Jack, who had lost not one but two mothers by the age of five and was probably suffering from terrible abandonment issues.

“YES!” shouted Jack, holding his computer game aloft.

“Jesus,” said Patrick. “Don’t kick the back of my seat.”

But shouldn’t Patrick have checked with her first? Wasn’t he taking advantage of her? To assume she’d be available?

Of course, then again, she herself hadn’t bothered to check with Patrick before she’d made the arrangement to have coffee with Julia. So she’d been acting like a single person too, like Jack wasn’t her responsibility at all.

It was so difficult to work out what was fair and what wasn’t. Presumably parents had some sort of procedure, an approval process when you were making arrangements. She’d have to ask her friend Madeline about this.

“I thought you said you’d clear out all the boxes from the hallway this afternoon,” said Ellen.

Saturday had been taken up with Jack’s sports activities, and Patrick had promised he’d have the boxes gone by the end of the weekend.

“Oh sure, don’t worry,” said Patrick. “When I get back from the office I’ll do it.”

He wouldn’t. She knew he wouldn’t. He’d be too tired after today’s trip, and then the office. It would be too late. Jack would want his attention when he got home, and then Patrick would want to collapse on the couch in front of 60 Minutes. It would be mean to remind him then. It would be considered “nagging.” She would have to put up with another week of those boxes sitting in the hallway.

All that clutter was having a catastrophic effect on the feng shui of her house. She seemed to remember that the front entrance was called “the mouth of chi,” where all the energy was meant to flow through. No wonder she was feeling so irritable—all the energy was being stopped at the front door!

Of course, now was certainly not the time to push the issue of the boxes; not when Patrick was so uptight about the lunch with Frank and Millie.

But the words were as irresistible as the last chocolate in the box.

“You won’t move them,” she murmured to the window, as if saying it quietly didn’t really count.