But it was fine. She could deal with it. All relationships had their problems after all. There was no need for her blood to turn to ice the moment she saw him pause, become still, the muscles in his back tensing.

He never hit her, after all. He would never do that. He only hurt her accidentally when she didn’t get out of his way quickly enough.

She just had to work out an appropriate response for these little “episodes.” Yelling back Cat-style? Calm, rational reasoning Lyn-style?

But both tactics only amplified his rage.

The only thing to do was to wait it out, to fold herself up inside, to pretend she was somewhere else. It was like ducking under a big wave when the surf was especially rough. You took a deep gulp and closed your eyes and dropped as far as you could beneath that raging wall of white water. While you were under it pushed you and shoved you as if it wanted to kill you. But it always passed. And when you broke the surface, gasping for air, sometimes it was so calmly-lapping-gentle you could hardly believe the wave ever existed in the first place.

It was fine. Their relationship was fine! They loved each other so much.

And she was forgetful and annoying and clumsy and selfish and hopeless and boring.

And it was highly unlikely that anyone else would put up with all of Gemma’s faults. She was, after all, fundamentally irritating.

She started having very long, very hot showers, scrubbing hard at her skin. Other women, she noticed, were so much cleaner than her.

“Right,” said Lyn. “Deep breaths.”

The three of them were standing outside Cat and Dan’s place, except that now, the moment they opened the door, it would only be Cat’s place.

Dan had spent the morning moving his stuff out.

“I’m fine,” said Cat. She went to put her key in the door, and Gemma caught Lyn’s eyes as they both looked away from the clumsy tremor of her hands.

They walked in and stopped. Gemma’s stomach turned as she saw the blank spots on the walls and the dusty grooves across the carpet where pieces of furniture had been pulled. She hadn’t really believed he would do it.

Dan was such an automatic, everyday part of the Kettle family. It seemed like he had always been a part of their family dinners and birthdays, Christmas and Easter celebrations, making jokes, slouching on the sofa, complaining and teasing and giving his opinions, loudly, Kettle-style. Maxine told him off without formality. Frank opened the fridge door and tossed him beer bottles without looking. Dan knew all the family stories, he even starred in some of them, like “the time Frank tossed the beer bottle over his shoulder to Dan only Dan wasn’t there” and “the day Cat bet Dan that he couldn’t make a pavlova and he made the most stupendous pavlova of all time for that barbecue and Nana Kettle trod on it and the cream went up to her ankle!”

What would happen to those stories now? Would it be like they never happened? Would they have to rewrite all their histories as if Dan weren’t there?

Gemma realized she was feeling somehow hurt by Dan, as if he’d left her too. And if she was feeling betrayed and shocked, then she couldn’t even imagine the depth of Cat’s feelings.

She had to say something.

“Oh dear,” she said.

Lyn rolled her eyes and said, “You didn’t tell me you were letting him take the fridge, Cat.” She took out her mobile from her handbag. “I’ll call Michael now and you can have that old one we’ve got in the garage.”

“Thanks,” said Cat vaguely. She was standing at the kitchen bench reading a handwritten note without picking it up. It was sitting next to a set of keys.

She pressed her fingertips gently against the piece of paper and then walked into the bedroom.

Gemma looked at Lyn, who was issuing bossy instructions to Michael. She gestured with her head for Gemma to follow Cat.

Gemma pulled faces at her. “What should I say?” she mouthed.

“Gemma’s being pathetic,” Lyn told Michael, and she pushed her firmly between the shoulder blades toward the bedroom.

Feeling slightly sick, Gemma allowed herself to be shoved.

The awful things that were happening to Cat made it seem like she was a different person—and that was wrong. She remembered Cat’s and Lyn’s scarily polite behavior when Marcus died. She must try to not to be polite to Cat. Sympathetic. But not at all polite.

Cat was standing with her hand on the mirrored door of the bedroom cupboard. “All his clothes are gone. Look.”

“More room for you!” Gemma began to spread out Cat’s coat hangers so that the empty half of the wardrobe disappeared. “Hey. I haven’t seen that skirt before. Hmmm. That’s very sexy.” She held it up against herself and swiveled her hips. Cat sat down on the bed in front of her and lifted up the hem of the skirt.

“Good. I can wear it clubbing when I’m out on the prowl again.”

“Yep. You’d pick up in no time.”

“Give those twenty-year-olds a run for their money.”

“For sure.”

They looked at each other, and Cat smiled wryly.

“Actually, I don’t have a great track record competing with the twenty-year-olds, do I?”

Gemma put the skirt back in the wardrobe and sat down next to her.

She put her arm around her. “You could get a hot young twenty-year-old yourself. They’ve got all that stamina.”

“Yeah,” Cat sighed. “The thought of some twenty-year-old pumping away at me makes me feel exhausted.”