Was I really that busy, happy girl? That girl who raced down the aisles of the shopping center after work, who prepared nutritious meals for a toddler and gourmet meals for his father, who went to parties and barbecues and movies, who had sex on Sunday mornings, who was just another regular member of the human race.

That Saskia really does seem like someone else, someone I knew well, someone I quite liked—but not actually me.

I’ve never bothered following Patrick up the mountains on the fourth Sunday. I know where he’s going. I know the flowers he’ll take and the florist where he picks them up. I know how he’ll stop at the graveyard where Colleen is buried. The day I went, he wanted me to come along to see Colleen’s grave. I refused. I thought it was a completely bizarre idea. I said, “If I died I wouldn’t want you bringing your new girlfriend to dance on my grave.” He said, “I’m not suggesting you dance on it.” But anyway, Jack had fallen asleep in his car seat, so I said we shouldn’t wake him and I’d stay in the car with him.

I thought it was about time he took Ellen up the mountains with him. Now they’ve moved in together, and they’re getting married and all that. Now he’s in a proper relationship; now Jack has a proper stepmother.

I watched them from my car as they all came out of Ellen’s house, looking like a proper little family. Jack wasn’t dressed warmly enough for the mountains in the middle of winter. He was only wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt. I thought about calling out to Ellen, “Get Jack a jacket!” but I didn’t. I’ve always tried not to confuse or upset Jack.

Ellen didn’t see me, but Patrick did. He actually held my eyes for a few seconds, and then he sniffed and shrugged and put his sunglasses on like a gangster at a funeral catching sight of the police presence.

It was strange when I saw them at the supermarket the other day. I wasn’t actually following them. I just happened to be there. It was a coincidence. Sort of. I was in their area because I’d driven by their house on my way home from work, but then I’d decided to pick up a few groceries. I wasn’t even thinking about Patrick and Ellen, which is a rare treat. I was looking for oats. I’d had a sudden craving for Anzac biscuits. I haven’t baked biscuits in years. Not since I was with Patrick. He and Jack loved it when I made biscuits. Of course, when I got home from the supermarket with the ingredients I couldn’t be bothered to make them. What would be the point? Ellen was the one who should have been making biscuits, not me.

Ellen saw me and then quickly looked away, almost like she was embarrassed or guilty, as if she was the stalker, not me.

That’s what Patrick calls me. A stalker. I got such a shock the first time he said it. How could I be a stalker? I wasn’t some deranged stranger. We’d lived together. We’d tried to have a baby together. The only reason I follow him is because I want to see him, to talk to him, to try and understand.

But perhaps, technically, that’s what I’ve become. A stalker.

Never thought I’d be forty-three years old and alone. Never thought I’d be childless. Never thought I’d be a stalker.

I shook my head at Ellen because I didn’t want to upset Jack if Patrick started acting like I was a potential murderer. I try to be invisible when they’re together. It’s my own personal code of stalker ethics.

I didn’t see any point in following them all the way up to the mountains today. I don’t like those winding roads, and also I didn’t want Patrick speeding with Jack in the car. So I got as far as the freeway, just to confirm that’s where they were going, and then I took the next exit.

“Have fun!” I called to the back of their car as it disappeared into the distance. And then the whole of Sunday lay in front of me, like a malicious joke. As I drove home, I imagined them talking in the car. So much to chat about and plan. The wedding. The baby. What they’ll all have for dinner tonight. I wonder if Ellen prepares Jack’s school lunch for him. Has she slipped into the Mummy role as easily and enthusiastically as I did? I can still remember the lunch I made for Jack’s first day of school. Ham and cheese sandwich on whole-meal bread. A peach. He loved peaches. Little box of sultanas. Carton of apple juice. A buttered slice of his favorite banana loaf. I planned it so meticulously. Talked about it with Mum. “Did he eat everything?” she rang up to ask that night. “Everything except the sultanas,” I told her. Patrick had no idea what Jack had in his lunch box. Food doesn’t really interest him.

When you’re responsible for a child, when your days are filled with the tiny details that make up a child’s life—his lunch box, his schoolbag, his shoes, his favorite T-shirt, his friends, his friends’ mothers, his TV shows, his temper tantrums—and then you’re told that you are no longer responsible, that you are no longer wanted, that your services are no longer required, that you have been made redundant, like an employee walked to the door by security, it is difficult.

It is quite profoundly difficult.

Jack must have asked for me. He must have been so confused.

I let him down. I blame myself for my mini-breakdown or whatever it was that happened to me when Patrick broke it off. I couldn’t stay in the same bed, so I went to stay at my friend Tammy’s place. Tammy. Whatever happened to Tammy? She tried so hard to stay friends with me, but then she sort of slid out of my life along with everyone else.

I remember waking up in Tammy’s room five days later, and realizing it was Friday morning and that Jack had swimming lessons straight after school, and I always had to remember to pack his things the night before, and who would take him? I worked nine-thirty to two-thirty p.m. I had rearranged my working hours so I could pick him up from preschool, and now for the last few weeks, school. I was happy to do this. I had more flexibility than Patrick and I loved picking him up. I was Jack’s mother. I didn’t mind when I missed out on a promotion because I wasn’t working full hours. That’s what all mothers do; they put their careers on hold for their children.