“A thing for him?” said Ellen. She could feel the most profound sense of irritation rising in her chest. The three of them were acting like teenagers. “But you picked him from a list!”

“Yes, yes, all that happened,” said Anne. “Don’t worry. Your life isn’t based on a lie. The part I didn’t ever tell you was that I did actually have a little crush on him.”

“More than a little,” said Melanie. “Pip and I saw right through her, of course.”

Now all three of them were chewing at their expensively lipsticked mouths, like schoolgirls trying not to giggle in class. Anne refilled their wineglasses, and Ellen, who was drinking mineral water, felt like their middle-aged mother. They were all being so silly.

“And it turns out that he’s always had a thing for me too,” said Anne with pride. “He thought about me throughout his marriage. I was always popping up in his dreams apparently.”

“That poor woman,” said Ellen.

“What poor woman?” Her mother frowned.

“His wife! The one he was engaged to when you slept with him to conceive me!”

“Oh, don’t be so—” Anne stopped and flicked her hand as if to wave away a harmless insect. Ellen suspected she’d been about to say “boring.”

Mel spoke up. “Ellen, your mother had nothing to do with their marriage breakdown. There is nothing untoward going on here.”

Ellen thought about some poor woman in London, sleeping next to her husband each night, while he dreamed of a violet-eyed girl back in sunny Sydney. Nothing untoward indeed.

“So.” Ellen tried not to sound snappish. “You’ve told him about me?”

Anne’s moony expression vanished and she looked nervous again.

“He was very shocked, of course, and so cross with me for not telling him. He said he would have called off the wedding if he’d known and married me. Imagine! I could have been quite the little housewife.”

“Oh, Mum,” said Ellen.

There was something cozy and self-satisfied about her mother’s tone. It made Ellen’s whole existence seem tacky and trite instead of bohemian and brave.

“You’ll meet him, of course, won’t you, Ellen?” said Phillipa. “It will be just like that television show where they reunite lost families. I’m crying already, just thinking about it.”

“I will meet him, of course I’ll meet him, but there’s nothing romantic or heart-wrenching about this,” said Ellen. “We just share the same DNA.”

“But now you know your parents were in love!”

“We thought you’d be thrilled.” Mel gave Ellen a curious, analytical frown, as though she were an accounting discrepancy she needed to solve. “You were always so desperate to meet your father. You were obsessed with him for a while.”

“When I was fifteen,” said Ellen. Now it just seemed like an awkward sort of social obligation.

“Don’t you want to see what he’s like?” asked Phillipa.

“I’m curious, I guess,” continued Ellen, except she wasn’t particularly. She was too focused on her own life at the moment: her baby, her soon-to-be “stepson” and “husband.” Her husband-to-be’s ex-girlfriend. She didn’t have time to devote to building a new relationship.

“Well, there’s no rush,” said Anne. “Whenever you’re ready.” Her hand kept returning to her neck, to caress the stone of her new necklace.

“So the necklace is a gift from him?” asked Ellen. “From, ah … David.” Surely she wasn’t meant to call him Dad?

Anne removed her hand. “Yes. It’s for our one-month anniversary.” She flushed. “I know we’re too old for that sort of thing.”

“Awwww,” said Phillipa.

Ellen’s mother was clearly in love, and she was in love with Ellen’s father, which in most cases was considered appropriate and convenient and the way the world was meant to work. Ellen couldn’t understand why she felt so unhappy about it. Was it just resistance to change? Did she not want her mother to love anyone else except her? She would have to think about this when she got home.

“I’m happy for you, Mum.” She did her utmost to sound sincere.

“I’m not counting my chickens, it’s early days, of course,” said Anne briskly, but then she smiled her bizarre new smile and reached out to touch Ellen’s hand. “Your dad is the loveliest man I’ve ever known.”

I live in a three-bedroom duplex.

I’ve never been fond of duplexes, and yet, here I am.

When Patrick and I broke up, I needed somewhere new to live fast, and I asked a real estate agent I knew to find me the first available rental property in my price range. So he found me this bland, sterile little place, in a street crammed with identical duplexes and three twenty-story apartment blocks. The people who live here are hardworking midlevel professionals. They are the worker bees of society, on their way to something better. This is an area where “convenience” is what counts. The railway station is an easy walk and it’s only a ten-minute trip into the city. There are dozens of perfectly adequate but not that great restaurants and twenty-four-hour dry cleaners and ATMs and cab ranks. People stride along checking their BlackBerrys and gulping down takeaway coffees. It’s not a place for lovers. There are no buskers or bookshops or galleries or cinemas. It’s good. It’s like an extension of the office.