“Cat’s a good girl really,” Nana told the solicitor. “Although she does like a little drink now and then.”

Gemma looked at Lyn and began to laugh with her usual abandon.

“Her sisters are terribly upset,” confided Nana.

Gemma made a strangled sound.

Cat didn’t say anything. She was wearing sunglasses and looked pale and bad-tempered and not at all repentant.

The Kettle family squeezed into a row of seats at the front of the room. Lyn wondered if she should warn them not to applaud. Frank and Maxine held hands like teenagers at the movies. Nana complained loudly about the uncomfortable seats. Gemma, who was sitting next to Lyn, twisted back and forth, checking out the audience.

“What are you doing?” asked Lyn.

“Just seeing if there are any cute criminals.”

“What happened to Charlie?”

“Long gone.”

“Because of Cat?”

“Of course because of Cat.”

“That’s a bit sad.”

Gemma swung back around. “Well, you’re the one who said I should break up with him. The day Dan moved his things out.”

“If it wasn’t going anywhere!”

“Well, I guess it wasn’t going anywhere.” She was dismissive. Lyn took out her Palm Pilot and began scrolling through her day’s diary entries. Gemma looked at it and scrunched up her nose.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Lyn sighed. “It’s not pretentious. It’s practical.”

“Whatever.”

They had to sit through six dull cases before it was Cat’s turn, and by then the Kettle family was starting to fidget and whisper.

The magistrate herself seemed bored and businesslike. She frowned deeply as she flipped through the evidence of Cat’s driving records. “Fifteen speeding offenses in the last five years,” she remarked.

Maxine coughed meaningfully. Gemma elbowed Lyn, and they both dropped their heads, sharing Cat’s guilt.

The magistrate’s face remained bland as the solicitor presented affidavits to prove Cat had been overwrought due to her miscarriage and the breakdown of her marriage.

“My client regrets her actions. They were the result of severe and unusual stress.”

“We all suffer stress,” the magistrate commented irritably, but she sentenced Cat to only a six-month license suspension and a thousand-dollar fine.

“The best you could have hoped for,” the solicitor said afterward.

“Six months will fly by!” agreed Frank. “Lyn and Gemma can give you lifts!”

Lyn gritted her teeth. “Or you can just pretend you’ve still got a license and keep driving.”

Everybody turned on her.

“What a silly thing to say, Lyn!”

“That wouldn’t be a good idea,” The solicitor spoke without irony. “The risk is too high.”

Lyn groaned and suppressed a childish desire to tattle, Ask her about the truck she’s been driving!

“I was joking,” she said.

Cat pulled her to one side as they all walked toward their cars.

“I’ve given back the truck to the smash repairers. So don’t get all f**king sanctimonious.”

Lyn felt her pulse accelerate in response to Cat’s contemptuous tone. It was like turning the dial on her gas stove. This is my biological fight or flight response, she reminded herself. Breathe! Cat was the only person who could make her feel this angry. It was like every fight they’d ever had over the past thirty years was all part of the one endless argument. At any moment, without notice, it could be started again, hurtling them straight into the middle of irrational, out-of-control, name-calling fury.

“Do you know how hard it was for me to get here today?” she said furiously.

“You came because you wanted to gloat, and now you’re disappointed because you think nobody took it seriously enough.”

The colossal injustice of the first accusation, combined with the element of truth in her second, made Lyn want to pick up her briefcase and slam it into Cat’s face.

“That night, I was going to take the blame for you! I was going to try and get you out of it!”

Cat wasn’t listening. “I’m not an idiot. Do you think I don’t know I could have killed somebody? I know it! I think about it!”

“Well, good,” said Lyn nastily. “Because it’s true.” Suddenly Lyn felt her fury slide away, leaving her weak with remorse. “O.K. then. Well. Want to go for a run this weekend? Do the Coogee to Bondi?”

“Oh sure! I’d love to!” Cat hammed it up, and they grinned at the absurdity of themselves. “Could I trouble you for a lift?”

Lyn rolled her eyes. “Of course.”

It was always like that. They never said sorry. They just threw down their still-loaded weapons, ready for next time.

The weather chose to be kind for Maddie’s birthday. The air was crisp, the sun warm, and it was a pleasure to look at the sky. A birthday picnic at Clontarf Beach would be just right.

Maddie, thankfully, had woken up as sweet and sunny as the weather, but Lyn’s cold had gotten considerably worse. She dosed herself up on aspirin and felt wooly-headed, muffled from the world.

They were just about to leave the house when the phone rang.

“It’s for you, Lyn,” called Michael.

She called back, “Take a message! We have to get going!”

A couple of minutes later he came down into the kitchen and picked up the giant picnic basket to take out to the car.