Three Wishes

  She's pregnant. I can't leave her now.

  No. It would be Sean. It would be a work friend. It could even be Dan's sister, Melanie. Melanie. Of course it was Mel. Of course.

  Cat stood up, walked to the phone, and dialed the number, and found she was breathing in exactly the same way as when she forced herself to sprint up that killer hill by the park. Frantic little gulps for air.

  The phone rang once, twice, three times. Cat wondered if she was having a heart attack.

  It switched to voicemail.

  A bubbly girl's voice spoke clearly and sweetly into Cat's ear, in the tone of a special friend who is so sorry she's missed you: "Hi! This is Angela. Leave me a message!"

  She hung up, hard.

  Gotcha.

  Scrape and twist of the key in the lock. He walks into the kitchen with plastic bags of shopping hanging from his wrists.

  She waits till he dumps them on the bench. Then she stands in front of him and puts her hands flat against his chest and automatically he links his hands behind the small of her back, because this is the way they stand. This is what they do. Her hands here and his hands there.

  She looks at him. Full in the face. Right in the eyes.

  He looks at her.

  And there it is. She wonders how she missed it and for how long.

  He's already gone. He's already looking back at her, politely, coolly, a little sadly, from some other place far off in the future.

  He's gone.

  Just like her baby.

  Heads or Tails, Susi?

  Do I have a problem with gambling? No! I've got a problem with winning! Ha! That's a joke I heard once. I don't know if I told it right, though. It's not really that funny.

  So, you want to know about the first time I gambled. Yeah, I remember. It was Anzac Day and I was sixteen. I was down at the Newport Arms. You know, it's the one day of the year you're allowed to play two up until midnight. It's legislated! Only in Oz, eh?

  It's a good atmosphere in the pubs on Anzac Day. A lot of old codgers. And you've got this big, excited circle of people standing around a guy in the middle, who tosses the coins. He's normally a bit of a performer. He uses a special little wooden stick and the coins go spinning up into the sky and everybody looks up and watches them come down. The way it works is everybody bets with one another. You just hold up your money in the air and call out ten on heads, or whatever.

  It was the first 2-Up game I'd ever seen, so I was watching for a while, seeing how it worked. I was mostly watching these girls, 'cos they were pretty easy on the eye. They were there with their grandpa, I think, they called him Pop. He was wearing one of them old-fashioned hats. He called them all "Susi" for some reason. They were all four putting away the beer. Jeez, were they into the game! They bet on every toss and they'd be yelling out, just like the men, "Head 'em up!" or "Tail 'em up!"

  When one of them won, their grandfather would do a little old-fashioned dance with them. Like a waltz. Just a couple of little steps whirling them around. And then they'd be back, holding up their cash, yelling and laughing, giving each other high fives.

  So finally I got up the guts to have a go. Bet five bucks on tails and won. I was hooked. Mate, I loved it. I can still see those coins flipping and turning in the moonlight and those three girls jumping up and down and hugging their grandpa.

  Oh, yeah, I was hooked. Big time.

  CHAPTER 15

  The first time it happened, she was driving out of the Chatswood Shopping Center parking lot.

  Maddie was in the back, silently strapped into her car seat, her thumb in her mouth, one finger locked around her nose. Lyn could see her accusing eyes in the rearview mirror. They weren't talking to each other after a particularly horrible experience in the bookstore.

  Maddie had spotted a copy of her favorite bedtime book in the children's section and grabbed it triumphantly off the shelf.

  "Mine!"

  "No, Maddie, it's not yours. Yours is at home. Put it back."

  Maddie looked up at Lyn as if she were nuts. She shook the book vigorously at her, eyes blazing righteously. "No! Mine!"

  Lyn felt quietly browsing customers around her lifting their eyes and tilting their heads in an interested way.

  "Shhhh!" She put a finger to her lips. "Put it back."

  But Maddie wasn't having any of it. She stomped her feet like a demented tap dancer and hugged the book tight to her stomach, hollering, "No, shh! Mummy, mine, mine, mine!"

  A woman walked into the same aisle as Lyn and smiled sympathetically.

  "Ah. The terrible twos, is it? I've got that to look forward to!" She was pushing a stroller with a cherubic blond baby, who observed Maddie with surprised round eyes.

  "Actually," said Lyn. "She's not even two yet. She's starting early."

  "Ah. Advanced for her age," the woman said nicely.

  "You could say that," began Lyn. "No, Maddie!"

  She leaped forward too late. The angelic baby had reached out a hand as if to grab Good Night, Little Bear and Maddie had responded with swift, efficient retribution, using the book to swipe the child across the face.

  The baby dissolved, as if her feelings had been hurt for the first time ever. One shocked chubby hand went up to the bright red mark on her cheek. Her blue eyes swam with fat tears.

  Lyn looked at the rather satisfied expression on her own daughter's face and died of shame.

  There was nothing worse, Lyn and Michael had always agreed, than seeing a parent slap a child in anger. Maddie would not be smacked. There would be no violence in their household.

  Violence begets violence.

  She believed it absolutely.

  And now she grabbed Maddie and smacked her hard. She smacked her very hard and very angrily, and Maddie's startled cry reverberated around the bookstore like a child abuse victim.

  "It's O.K.," said the nice woman, picking up her nice child. She had the same round blue eyes as her baby.

  "I'm so, so sorry. She's never done that before."

  And I've never done that before, either.

  "It's O.K. Really." The woman rocked her baby to her shoulder. She had to raise her voice to be heard over Maddie's ear-splitting wail. "Kids!"

  Maddie backed herself up against the bookshelf and doubled over, crying with luxurious, hysterical abandon, only stopping to take a breath of air to help her reach a new level of volume.

  People around them were now openly looking, some of them craning their heads over bookshelves to see. They stared blank-faced, their mouths slightly slack, like people in an audience.

  "I'll have to get her out of here. I'm so sorry."

  "It's fine," smiled the woman, jiggling her child on her hip. My God, she was freakishly nice.

  Lyn picked up Maddie, who continued to scream relentlessly, arching her body and throwing back her head so it caught Lyn painfully on the chin. With her arms pinned tightly around her daughter's violently wriggling body, she walked rapidly out of the shop. The mother-with-screaming-child walk of shame.

  "Excuse me, madam!" A pounding of footsteps behind her.

  "Yes?" Lyn looked up. Maddie's legs continued to kick.

  "Um." It was a very tall teenager with a "How can I help you?" smiley badge pinned to his blue denim shirt. He looked apologetic about his height, as if he didn't quite know how he'd got all the way up there. He locked big knuckles awkwardly. "Only, I think maybe you haven't paid for those books."

  Maddie was still clutching Good Night, Little Bear and Lyn herself was holding a copy of Coping with Miscarriage as well as, humiliatingly, Taming the Toddler: A Survival Guide for Parents.

  Well, why not? The sort of woman who hit her children would also do the occasional spot of shoplifting.

  She marched back to the cash register, trying to smile ironically and humorously. If she had had someone with her, Michael or one of her sisters, then it would be funny. If she had both her sisters it would be pure slapstick. It would make their day.

  But she
was on her own and so she could only imagine it being funny.

  "Wasn't that Lyn Kettle?" she heard someone say as she paid for the books, including a second copy of Good Night, Little Bear, and stuffed change into her purse. "You know. The Brekkie Bus woman."

  Oh, funny. What a riot.

  Maddie's sobbing had subsided into piteous little hiccups by the time they got back to the car.

  "Mummy's very sorry she got cross," Lyn told her as she buckled her into the seat. "But you must never, never hit little babies like that."

  Maddie stuck her thumb in her mouth and blinked, as if she was well aware of the lack of logic in Lyn's argument and it wasn't worth a response.

  Her eyelashes were still wet from crying.

  Guilt came to rest directly at the center of Lyn's forehead. She imagined the nice woman describing the incident to her undoubtedly nice friends, while all their nice children frolicked quietly and shared their toys. "I mean it's obvious where the child learned to behave like that."

  She turned on the "tranquility sounds" CD she'd bought as part of achieving her New Year's resolution: Reduce stress in measurable, tangible ways, both professional and personal, by no later than 1 March.

  The warbles and chirps of happy little birds filled her car, a waterfall gurgled, a single bell chimed.

  Oh, Jesus. It was unbearable. She switched it off and reversed her car.

  Where was the "exit" sign? Why did they make it so difficult to get out of shopping center parking lots? You'd done your shopping--they weren't going to get any more money out of you. What was their objective here?

  She couldn't give Cat that miscarriage book. She'd sneer at her. Make some contemptuous remark. Make her feel like an idiot. The other day when she asked, "Who's got Maddie?" her eyes were so hard and hate-filled, Lyn had felt herself flinch.

  Dan. Something wasn't right there. It didn't matter what Gemma said, he was still seeing that girl. She could see it in his face. He looked right through them all. The Kettles didn't matter to him anymore.

  Around and around she went. The "exit" signs disappeared completely to be replaced by cheerful "more parking this way" arrows.

  Gemma looping her hair around her finger. They all laughed at Gemma but--well, was she normal? At school she was the smartest of the three of them. "Gemma is extremely bright," Sister Mary told Maxine, who had looked quite baffled. "Gemma?" And now Gemma seemed to be frittering away her entire life like a sunny Saturday morning.

  NO EXIT. STOP. GO BACK.

  This had to be a joke. There was no way to get out of this shopping center. Was there a hidden camera somewhere with some manic presenter about to jump out and shove a microphone in her face? Because it wasn't funny. "That wasn't funny," she'd say.

  She backed up and started driving again. Around and around.

  Frank and Maxine on Christmas Day. That shiny, smug expression on Dad's face. Mum all sweetly girly and stupid, stupid, stupid.

  EXIT THIS WAY. O.K., fine. If you so say so. She swung the wheel.

  Bloody, bloody hell. She'd forgotten cockroach spray. Maxine had suggested a promisingly murderous-sounding brand called "Lure & Kill." This morning one had scuttled evilly across the pure white expanse of her fridge door.

  NO ENTRY.

  Fuuuuck!

  She slammed on the brake.

  And that's when it happened.

  She forgot how to breathe.

  One second she was breathing like a normal person, the next she was making strange choking sounds, crazily gasping for air, her hands clammy and cold against the steering wheel, her heart hammering impossibly fast.

  My God, I'm having a heart attack. Maddie. Car. Have to stop.

  With stupidly shaking hands she turned off the car engine.

  Pop Kettle died of a heart attack. Dropped dead in the backyard giving Ken from next door a tip on the doggies.

  Now Lyn was going to drop dead in Chatswood Shopping Center. It would be in the papers. Women across Australia would all secretly ask, What sort of irresponsible mother drops dead with a toddler in the backseat?

  Unadulterated panic pumped through her body. Her chest heaved, and her hands fluttered uselessly in the air.

  She couldn't breathe.

  Droplets of moisture slid down her back.

  Why couldn't she breathe?

  And just when she thought, O.K. this is it, this is the end, somehow, someway, she began to breathe again.

  The relief was ecstasy. Of course she could breathe. Her heartbeat slowed more and more until it was almost back to its normal quiet, unobtrusive rhythm.

  Limp with relief, she turned around to check Maddie. She was deeply, soundly asleep, her thumb still in her mouth, her head lolling trustfully against the side of her car seat.

  Lyn turned back on the ignition and adjusted the rearview mirror to look at herself. Her face looked back at her perfectly calmly, her lipstick was still perfect.

  She pushed the mirror back into position and drove straight out of the parking lot.

  When Michael arrived home that night, Maddie went rocketing into his arms and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  "Daddy!" She gave his head an extra happy, pleased-with-him pat.

  "Hello, my precious."

  "She hasn't exactly been precious today." Lyn kept chopping garlic and tilted her cheek to be kissed.

  "Hello, my other precious. I thought I said I'd cook tonight."

  "I'm just doing a quick stir-fry."

  "You wanted to get your accounts done today."

  "This won't take me long."

  "I did say."

  The unspoken accusation--Lyn-the-Martyr. She'd been hearing it all her life. If she just gave people a chance, they would get around to doing things. If she would just relax, chill out, loosen up.

  "Feet, Daddy!"

  Michael balanced Maddie's bare feet on top of his own black business shoes and, holding on to her hands, he began to walk around the kitchen with exaggerated lifted knees.

  "So what did our Ms. Madeline get up to today?"

  "There was a little baby in the bookshop who reached out for Maddie's book. So she backhanded her with it."

  "Ah."

  "So I smacked her."

  "Ah."

  Lyn turned around from the chopping board to look at him. He was grinning down at Maddie, who was dimpling up at him, her eyes shining. With their curly black hair, they looked like a perfect Daddy and daughter in a movie. Lyn had a sudden memory of Cat standing on Frank's shoes in exactly the same way, except Frank was whirling her around the room in a crazy, dizzy waltz and Cat was pink-faced and shrieking, "Faster, Daddy, faster!" while Maxine yelled, "Slower, Frank, slower!"

  Relax, Mum, they used to tell her. Poor Mum.

  "I smacked her quite hard."

  "I expect she deserved it. You know what this proves?"

  "What?" Lyn had gone back to the chopping board. So much for shared parenting values.

  "It's time for us to breed again! She's ready for a sister or brother."

  Lyn snorted. "Right. So she can have someone to abuse on a daily basis."

  "I mean it. She's the sort of kid who needs brothers and sisters. We did say we'd start trying this year. That was the five-year plan if you recall."

  Lyn didn't answer.

  Michael's tone turned teasing. "I'm sure you've got it written down somewhere."

  Of course she had it written down. She'd planned to go off the Pill after her next period.

  Lyn pushed the garlic into a neat little hill and poured oil into the wok. "Yes, well, obviously that's got to be put on hold now."

  "What do you mean obviously?"

  "Cat, of course."

  "Oh, Cat, of course."

  "Imagine how she'd feel if I just happily announced I was having a baby."

  "So how long do we put our life on hold for?"

  "As long as necessary."

  "That's ridiculous. What if Cat takes months to get pregnant again? Or has another m
iscarriage?"

  "Don't say that."

  She couldn't understand why this wasn't as black-and-white obvious to him as it was to her.

  Lyn put the garlic into the hot oil and it sizzled and popped excitedly, while Michael lifted Maddie off his feet and allowed her to go running off on some mission.

  "You're serious."

  "I told you. The other day with Gemma and Mum, she was just, I don't know. When we were sitting there eating bun, she had exactly the same sort of surprised hurt expression on her face that she got when Mum and Dad sat us down in the living room and told us they were getting a divorce. I've never forgotten it. Her little face just crumpled."

  "Well, your little face probably crumpled too."

  "I don't know if it did or not. That's just my memory of it. Cat's face."

  "So. Do you think Cat would do the same for you if the situations were reversed?"

  "Yep."

  "I bet she bloody well wouldn't."

  "I bet she bloody well would."

  Kara appeared in the kitchen. "Yum, it smells good in here. I'm starved to death!"

  Lyn's eyes met Michael's in shared surprise at this unexpected cheeriness.

  "Shall I set the table?"

  Michael's mouth dropped.

  "Thanks," said Lyn, trying for the nonfussy, not-too-enthusiastic tone that Cat seemed to use so effectively with Kara.

  "No problemo."

  She opened a cupboard door and began pulling down plates.

  Michael gestured wildly and silently at Lyn. "Drugs?" he mouthed frantically, doing something peculiar to his forearm that was presumably meant to be his imitation of somebody injecting a vein.

  Lyn rolled her eyes.

  Kara closed the cupboard door. "What are you doing, Dad?"

  "Oh! Just--you know!"

  "You are such an idiot."

  Michael looked relieved and nodded agreeably.

  "Mummy!" Maddie toddled back into the kitchen, an expression of perplexed delight on her face. "Look!"

  She held up two copies of Good Night, Little Bear.

  Lyn said, "Fancy that!" and Maddie plunked down onto her bottom with both books in front of her, her head turning back and forth, as she flipped each page, intent on solving this mystery. The smell of frying garlic filled the kitchen and Michael chomped on a piece of capsicum and the ghost of his childhood dimple dented his cheek as he happily poured too much soy sauce into the stir-fry. Kara rattled efficiently through the drawer for knives and forks and her bare shoulders were young and tanned with skinny white lines from her swimsuit. And for just a moment, in spite of all the reasons not to feel happy (like the sinister bruise of worry over today's parking lot incident), Lyn experienced an unexpectedly lovely unfurling of happiness.