It was interesting, watching someone else living in my home and living my life, showing me how easy and natural it could be. She wouldn’t have hesitated when they asked her over. “Sure! What will I bring?” she would have said.

“They’re fun,” she continued. “We played Monopoly with the kids.”

“I hate Monopoly,” commented Kate, picking up her needles again.

“Anyway, we’re planning a welcome home party for you,” said Tammy.

“A party?” I said. “I don’t really do parties.”

“What are you talking about?” said Tammy. “I was telling Janet and Peter about that Halloween party you had years ago. Remember? It was one of the best parties I’ve ever been to.”

I did remember. It was when Patrick and I had just started dating but before we’d moved in together. I’d gone all out and decorated my flat with pumpkin lights and cobwebs. I even put dry ice in tubs for a creepy, smoky effect. Everyone dressed up. Patrick came as Dracula and kept bending me over so he could sink his fangs into my neck. I was Morticia, with a long black wig and a spider choker around my neck. I remember the photos: You’d never seen a happier Morticia.

But the girl who hosted that party doesn’t exist anymore, I thought.

“You made pumpkin pie,” said Tammy. “It was divine.”

“I’ve never eaten pumpkin pie,” said Kate.

“I’ll make it for you,” I said, and suddenly I was listing the ingredients in my head: cream cheese, cinnamon, ginger. And then I was struck by how very much I wanted to make pumpkin pie for Kate and Lance and Tammy and maybe even the family next door, to see people enjoying my food and asking for second helpings. How long had it been since I’d been the hostess, since I’d cooked for someone?

I remembered the Anzac biscuits I’d baked in Ellen’s kitchen and I shuddered at the memory. I picked up the mail to distract myself.

“Apparently Janet’s brother has taken a shine to you,” said Tammy. “So we’re going to match you up at this party.”

“Janet’s brother?” She was talking nonsense. “I’ve never even met her brother.” As she talked I sorted my mail: Bills. Junk mail. More bills.

“He met you once on your way out,” said Tammy. “He thinks he’s seen you before, at Avalon Beach, boogie boarding? Could that be right?”

I picked up a letter addressed to me in neat handwriting that was vaguely familiar. I noticed there was a strange bulge in the bottom right-hand corner of the envelope.

“I tried boogie boarding a few times,” I said. I flicked the envelope back and forth between my fingertips as I remembered that woolly-haired man at the beach, the way his shadow fell over me that morning when I lay in the sand in my red dress, the day after I’d turned up at Patrick’s parents’ house when Ellen was there.

Then I thought back to the man carrying the wine, coming up the path of the next-door neighbor’s as I’d left for the pretend fortieth birthday party. I remembered how he’d looked at me as if he knew me.

I morphed together the two images from my memory and saw that they could easily be the same person. It gave me a peculiar feeling, as if I needed to go back and examine my whole life and look for all the things I’d missed.

“But he’s got a girlfriend,” I said, remembering the way he’d put his arm around the woman he was with, and how bereft I’d felt when I’d seen it.

“He just broke up with someone,” said Tammy. “He’s back on the market. You’ll have to move fast before he’s snapped up by someone else.”

“What’s he do for a living?” said Kate. “Or is that a superficial question? What are his dreams, his hopes?”

“Wait for it,” said Tammy dramatically. “He’s a … carpenter.”

“He is not.” Kate dropped her knitting.

“He is!”

“Be still my beating heart!”

I laughed at them. I’d forgotten that sort of laughter. Silly, girly, helpless giggling. I thought I’d grown too old for giggling, but actually you never really grow out of it. I should have known that. When Mum was in her seventies she used to meet up with her old tennis club once a month for lunch. I was staying with her once when it was her turn to host, and I remember walking in the front door and hearing peals of laughter coming from the living room. They sounded like teenagers.

I’d forgotten that the best part of dating wasn’t the actual dating at all but the talking about it: the analysis of potential new boyfriends with your girlfriends.

“Can I come to this party?” said Kate. “So I can meet the carpenter?”

“Of course,” said Tammy. “I wonder if we could think up an excuse so he’ll need to do some actual carpentry at the party?”

“Like putting up a bookshelf?”

“Ideally something that makes Saskia seem helpless and vulnerable.”

“So much for feminism,” I said.

Kate snapped her fingers. “A disabled ramp! For her wheelchair!”

“They say I’ll be walking by the time I go home,” I said. They were going to try to get me on crutches next week.

“Oh,” said Kate, disappointed. “Are you sure?”

I forgot about the envelope with the familiar handwriting until later that night after they’d left. I turned it over and saw the sender’s details on the back: