Gemma sat down on the Penthursts’ soft floral sofa, which made her knees slide up to her chin, and stopped pretending to talk to Kara.

You were nineteen. You didn’t imagine it. You didn’t deserve it. You didn’t secretly like it. When he died, it was weird and confusing. Of course it was. You loved him as much as you hated him. I’m sorry for being so nasty about it for all this time.

“I forgive you,” she said out loud. Who, Marcus? the Violets called out nosily from the windowsill.

No! I never stopped forgiving him! Me. I forgive me for staying with him. A pressure she didn’t know she was feeling suddenly released. It felt like she was unclenching her fists for the first time in a decade.

Someone did a ladylike little fart during “Beginner Yoga for Mums-to-Be.”

At the time everyone was lying flat on their backs, eyes shut, pinned to blue foam mats. The lights were dimmed and the cross-legged teacher was delivering gentle, melodic instructions: “Breathe in…one, two, three…and out…one, two, three.”

Gemma’s pupils danced behind her eyelids. That was not the slightest bit funny, she told herself sternly. You are not a schoolboy.

“Excuse me!” The frothy hint of a giggle in the culprit’s voice was irresistible. All around her Gemma sensed the quivering vibrations of chortling, pregnant women.

“Breathe in…” continued the teacher reprovingly, but it was too late, the class united in a gale of warm laughter.

And at that moment, as Gemma laughed with them, she felt a small but unmistakable movement in her belly, like the delicate flutter of a butterfly’s wings. It wasn’t like those other peculiar tummy rumbles she’d been experiencing; this was separate from her, yet part of her. Well, hello there, little butterfly baby! So, you really are in there! Do you think it’s funny too?

As the class pulled themselves together and the teacher resumed her chanting, a single tear slid down Gemma’s cheek and straight into her ear, where it tickled.

Hello, sweetie! I’m your Auntie Gemma.

“It’s absolutely gorgeous.” Gemma stood in Cat’s spare room surveying the exquisite nursery that was emerging. “You’re so clever!”

“Yes, I am.” Cat looked content in her yellow paint-splattered overalls, a glass of red wine, a bag of pretzels, and a portable stereo on the floor next to her. “I didn’t realize home improvement could be so therapeutic. And check this out, I’ve been stocking up!” She opened the linen cupboard to reveal neatly stacked shelves of baby stuff—bibs, booties, disposable nappies, fluffy blankets. “Lyn’s been giving me things.”

“Oh, good! She must be coming around to the idea.”

“I don’t think so. Every time she hands something over, she says, “Don’t think this means I approve!”

“She might need that stuff for herself if she gets pregnant.”

“She told me yesterday they’ve revised the five-year plan. They’re going to wait until Maddie is three. She wants to expand the business this year, set up a franchise operation.”

“Gosh. She’s so driven.”

“Michael told her he was leaving her if she didn’t hire an assistant.”

“Oh, that’s so lovely of him!”

“Yes, I was pleased with him. What’s your five-year plan, by the way? What are you going to do once the baby is born?” Cat gave her a sudden keen look.

“I work on five-minute plans,” said Gemma. “But lately, I have been thinking about getting a real job. Maybe I’ll go back to teaching. Or study again. Or maybe I’ll travel for a bit!”

“Gosh, Gemma,” Cat picked up her wineglass and grinned at her. “You’re so driven.”

In August, when Gemma was seven months pregnant, Frank moved back into the family home at Turramurra.

A few weeks after, Maxine—not fooling anyone with her lighthearted tone—organized a “casual” family dinner. At the last minute Michael had to work, Nana got a better offer, and Kara offered to stay home and mind Maddie. So, for the first time in twenty-seven years, Frank, Maxine, and their three daughters found themselves sitting self-consciously around the dinner table.

“Well, I hope you girls all eat your vegetables these days!” Frank joked heartily, and then quickly jammed a huge forkful of food into his mouth, as if he’d heard his own words and realized how inappropriate they were, because the long-ago battles over vegetables hadn’t really been that funny.

When they were in kindergarten, Cat developed a psychotic aversion to “green-colored food.” “No green!” she’d cry passionately, as if it were a religious belief. In Gemma’s memory there wasn’t a dinnertime where Maxine hadn’t raged, “You’re not leaving the table until you’ve finished every scrap on that plate!” They’d argue violently back and forth until Frank would suddenly explode, “Oh for Christ’s sake, leave the child alone!” and then it was no longer about Cat eating her vegetables, it was about Mum and Dad and hard, hating words and silent, vicious chewing and the cross clatter and scrape of cutlery across plates. “I’ll eat them!” Gemma would offer desperately. “I love green!” Lyn, her plate cleared, would say in a tired, grown-up voice, “May I be excused?”

There was a moment’s loaded silence around the table. “Of course they like their vegetables now. They all became vegetarians when they were teenagers,” observed Maxine, who had never forgiven Cat for being the one to instigate that “ludicrous little phase.”