Alice was terrified. Choreographed it herself ? She’d assumed Olivia would be performing something she’d learned at ballet school. Good Lord, it would probably be dreadful. Her hands were sweaty. It was as if she were going up there herself.

“Hmmmm,” said Olivia without moving.

“Olivia,” said Tom. “It’s your turn.”

“I actually feel a bit sick,” said Olivia.

Nick said, “All the best performers feel sick, sweetie. It’s a sign. It means you’re going to be great.”

“You don’t have to—” began Alice.

Nick put a hand on her arm and Alice stopped.

“As soon as you start, the sick feeling will go away,” he said to Olivia.

“Promise?” Olivia looked up at him trustingly.

“Cross my heart and hope to be killed by a rabid dog.”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “You’re so silly, Dad.” She slid down from the chair and marched down the aisle toward the stage, her tulle skirt bobbing. Alice’s heart twisted. She was so little. So alone.

“Have you seen this routine?” whispered Nick, as he adjusted the focus on a tiny silver camera.

“No. Have you?”

“No.” They watched as Olivia climbed the stairs of the stage. Nick said, “I actually feel a bit sick myself.”

“Me too,” said Alice.

Oliva stood in the center of the stage with her head bowed and her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes closed.

Alice massaged her stomach. She could feel the tension emanating from Nick.

The music started. Olivia slowly opened one eye, then the other. She yawned enormously, wriggled and squirmed. She was a caterpillar sleepily emerging from its cocoon. She looked over her shoulder, pretended to catch sight of a wing and her mouth dropped comically.

The audience laughed.

They laughed.

Alice’s daughter was funny! Publicly funny!

Olivia looked over her other shoulder and staggered with delight. She was a butterfly! She fluttered this way and that, trying out her new wings, falling over at first and then finally getting the hang of it.

It was true that she probably wasn’t quite in time with the music, and some of her dance moves were, well, unusual, but her facial expressions were priceless. In Alice’s opinion, and she felt she was being quite objective, there had never been a funnier, cuter performance of a butterfly.

By the time the music had stopped Alice was suffused with pride, her face aching from smiling so much. She looked about at the audience and saw that people were smiling and clapping, clearly charmed, although they were perhaps holding themselves back so as not to make the other performers feel bad (why not a standing ovation, for example?), and she was shocked to see a woman in the middle of checking her mobile phone. How could she have dragged her eyes away from the stage?

“She’s a comic genius,” she whispered to Nick.

Nick lowered the camera, and his face, when he turned to look at her, was filled with identical awe and pleasure.

“Mum. I helped her a bit,” said Madison tentatively.

“Did you?” Alice put her arm around Madison’s shoulder and pulled her close. She lowered her voice. “I bet you helped her a lot. You’re a great big sister. Just like your Auntie Libby was to me.”

Madison looked amazed for a second, and then she smiled that exquisite smile that transformed her face.

“How did I get such talented children?” said Alice, and her voice shook. Why had Madison looked so surprised?

“Comes from their father,” said Nick.

Olivia came dancing back down the aisle and sat up on the chair next to Nick, grinning self-consciously. “Was I good? Was I excellent?”

“You were the best!” said Nick. “Everybody is saying we may as well just pack up our bags and go, now that Olivia Love has performed.”

“Silly,” giggled Olivia.

They sat through another four acts, including a comedy act by someone’s middle-aged daughter that was so incredibly unfunny it was sort of funny, and a little boy who lost his nerve and got stage fright halfway through reciting a Banjo Paterson poem until his grandfather came unsteadily up onstage and held his hand, and they read it together, which made Alice cry.

Frannie walked up to the microphone again. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this has been such a special night and in a moment you can enjoy supper, but we have just one final act for you and I hope you’ll forgive me, but it’s another one of my own family members. Please put your hands together for Barb and Roger performing the salsa!”

The stage went dark. A single spotlight revealed Alice’s mother and Nick’s father in full Latin costumes, standing completely still. Roger had one knee thrust between Barb’s legs, his arm around her waist. Barb was leaning back, exposing her neck. Roger’s head was bowed toward hers, his face dramatic, frowning tremendously.

Nick made a sound like something was stuck in his throat. Ella made a sympathetic choking sound back.

“Grandma and Grandpa look like people on TV,” said Tom happily. “They look famous.”

“They do not,” said Madison.

“They do so.”

“Shhhh,” said Alice and Nick together.

The music started and their parents began to move. They were good in a horrendous sort of way. Swiveling their hips proficiently. Moving in and out of each other’s arms. It was just so mortifyingly sexual—and in front of all these old people!