“You’re right,” said Lyn.

“I know I am.” Maxine looked at Maddie, who was chattering with animated delight to her own reflection in the china cabinet. “Lyn, what is on that child’s face? She’s filthy!”

“Vegemite. When Gemma and Cat read this, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Well, I don’t see why.” Maxine got down on her knees and held Maddie’s chin firmly while she rubbed at the Vegemite with a handkerchief. Maddie kept her eyes fixed on the little girl in the china cabinet and smiled secretively. “You said they were your best friends.”

“Exactly! And I never said any such thing.”

She picked up her keys from the coffee table and looked at Maddie, who was now busily shredding pages from She magazine.

“Kiss for Mummy?” she asked, with little hope.

“No!” Maddie looked up, affronted. Lyn leaned down toward her and Maddie shook an admonishing finger. “No!”

“Oh well.”

Lyn picked up her briefcase. “I’ll be back around six. I’ve got to pick Kara up from her friend’s place after the meeting at the bakery.”

“You look absolutely dreadful, Lyn,” announced Maxine.

“Thank you, Mum.”

“You do. You’re a skeleton, all pale and drab and miserable-looking. That color doesn’t do you any favors of course. I’ve told you girls not to wear black, you refuse to listen. The point is, you do far too much. Why isn’t Kara’s mother picking her up? I mean really, why won’t Michael put his foot down?”

“Mum, please.”

Lyn could feel a scratchy tickle at the back of her throat. She put down her briefcase and sneezed three times.

“Hay fever,” said Maxine with satisfaction. “It’s that time of year for you three. I’ll get you an antihistamine.”

“I don’t have time.”

“It will only take a minute. Sit.”

She disappeared down the hallway, heels tapping a brisk rhythm across the tiles, Maddie running along behind her. Suddenly exhausted, Lyn sat back down on her mother’s puffy cream sofa.

She looked at the familiar photos that lined the walls. The traditional Kettle Triplet pose: Gemma in the middle, Lyn and Cat on either side. It pleased their mother’s sense of balance to have the redhead separating the blondes. Identical dresses, identical hair ribbons, identical poses. Three little girls with crinkled eyes, laughing at the camera. They were laughing at their father of course. When they were children they thought he was the funniest man to walk the Earth.

She could hear her mother talking to Maddie in the kitchen. “No, you may not have one. These are not lollies. There is no point in looking at me like that, young lady. No point at all.”

Some of Lyn’s friends complained about their children being spoiled by doting grandparents. She didn’t need to worry about Maddie missing out on her discipline quota with Maxine. It was like sending her to boot camp.

On the coffee table was a typed document Maxine was obviously in the middle of proofreading. Lyn picked it up. It was a speech for a parenting workshop her mother was running called “Triple the Heartache, Triple the Fun!”

“She’s made a career out of being our mother,” Cat always complained.

“So what?” Lyn would say.

“It’s exploitation.”

“Oh, please.”

Lyn flicked idly through the speech. Most of it she recognized from previous speeches, articles, and her mother’s book:

Sometimes you may feel like a traveling freak show. Eventually, you’ll get used to the stares and the approaches by strangers. I remember once I counted the number of times I was stopped by well-meaning people wanting to look at my daughters as I walked through Chatswood Shopping Center. It was—

Fifteen, thought Lyn. Yes, we know, fifteen times!

It has been calculated that it takes twenty-eight hours a day to look after triplets. That’s tricky, considering we only have twenty-four at our disposal! (Wait for laugh)

I’m not so sure you’ll get one, Mum. That’s not actually very funny.

Monozygotic twins—meaning one egg—share 100 percent of their genes. Dizygotic twins—meaning two eggs—share only 25 percent of their genes, like any normal sibling.

Gemma would be offended to hear herself described as a “normal” sibling. When they were in second class, Sister Joyce Mary chalked a picture of the three-leafed shamrock on the blackboard to illustrate how “the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were three persons but one God.” Gemma’s hand shot into the air. “Like triplets! Like us!” The nun winced. “I’m afraid the Kettle girls are not like the Holy Trinity!” “Yes, but I think we are, Sister,” said Gemma kindly.

When Gemma told the story to their mother, Maxine explained that her analogy might have been reasonable if they’d all come from the one egg. However, as only Cat and Lyn were identical and Gemma was a “single egg” they probably couldn’t be compared to the Holy Trinity, which was a lot of nonsense anyway. “I don’t want to be a single egg!” wailed Gemma. “What if we were Siamese triplets?” asked Cat. “With our heads all glued together?” But their mother had turned up the car radio to drown out Gemma.

Sibling rivalry is obviously a complex issue, which I will be discussing at length. On other hand, you may feel envious of mothers of “singletons” and worry that your babies are actually closer to each other than to you. This is perfectly normal.