You should be playing with dolls, thought Madeline. Or at least playing with makeup.

She felt a surge of righteous anger with Nathan and Bonnie, because, actually, Abigail was too young and sensitive to know about human trafficking. Her feelings were too fierce and uncontrolled. She had inherited Madeline’s unfortunate talent for instant outrage, but her heart was far softer than Madeline’s had ever been. She had too much empathy (although, of course, all that excessive empathy was never directed at Madeline or Ed, or Chloe and Fred).

Madeline remembered when Abigail was only about five or six and so proud of her new ability to read. She’d found her sitting at the kitchen table, her lips moving as she carefully sounded out a headline on the front page of a newspaper with an expression of pure horror and disbelief. Madeline couldn’t remember now what the article was about. Murder, death, disaster. No. Actually she did remember. It was a story about a child taken from her bed in the early eighties. Her body was never found. Abigail still believed in Santa Claus at that time. “It’s not true,” Madeline had told her quickly, snatching up the paper and vowing never to leave it anywhere accessible ever again. “It’s all made-up.”

Nathan didn’t know about that, because Nathan wasn’t there.

Chloe and Fred were such different creatures. So much more resilient. Her darling little tech-savvy, consumerist savages.

“I’m going to do something about this,” said Abigail, scrolling down the screen.

“Really?” said Madeline. Well, you’re not going to Pakistan, if that’s what you’re thinking. You’re staying right here and watching America’s Next Top Model, young lady. “What do you mean? A letter?” She brightened. She had a marketing degree. She could write a better letter than Bonnie ever could. “I could help you write a letter to our MP petitioning for an—”

“No,” interrupted Abigail scornfully. “That achieves nothing. I’ve got an idea.”

“What sort of idea?” asked Madeline.

Afterward she would wonder if Abigail might have answered her truthfully, if she could have put a stop to the madness before it even began, but there was a knock on the front door just then and Abigail snapped shut the laptop.

“That’s Dad,” she said, getting to her feet.

“But it’s only four o’clock,” protested Madeline. She stood up too. “I thought I was driving you back at five.”

“We’re going to Bonnie’s mother’s for dinner,” said Abigail.

“Bonnie’s mother,” repeated Madeline.

“Don’t make a drama of it, Mum.”

“I didn’t say a word. I didn’t say, for example, that you haven’t seen my mother in weeks.”

“Grandma is too busy with her social life to even notice,” Abigail said accurately.

“Abigail’s dad is here!” yelled Fred from the front of the house, meaning, Abigail’s dad’s car is here!

“Gidday, mate!” Madeline heard Nathan say to Fred. Sometimes just the sound of Nathan’s voice could evoke a wave of visceral memory: betrayal, resentment, rage and confusion. He just left. He just walked out and left us, Abigail, and I couldn’t believe it, I just could not believe it, and that night, you cried and cried, that endless new baby cry that—

“Bye, Mum,” said Abigail, and she leaned down to kiss her compassionately on the cheek, as if Madeline were an elderly aunt she’d been visiting and now, phew, it was time to get out of this musty place and go back home.

38.

Stu: I’ll tell you something I do remember. I ran into Celeste White once. I was on the other side of Sydney doing a job and I had to go pick up some new taps because someone had stuffed up . . . anyhow, long story short, I’m walking through a Harvey Norman store where they had all the bedroom furniture on display, and there’s Celeste White, lying flat on her back in the middle of a double bed, staring at the ceiling. I did a double take and then said, “Hello, love,” and she jumped out of her skin. It was like I’d caught her robbing a bank. It just seemed strange. Why was she lying on a discount double bed so far from home? Gorgeous-looking woman, stunning, but always a bit . . . skittish, you know. Sad to think about it now. Very sad.

Are you the new tenant?”

Celeste jumped and nearly dropped the lamp she was carrying.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” said a plumpish, forty-ish woman in gym gear, emerging from the apartment across the corridor. She was accompanied by two little girls, who looked like they were twins about the same age as Josh and Max.

“I’m sort of the new tenant,” sad Celeste. “I mean, yes, I am. I’m not sure exactly when we’re moving in. It might be a while.”

This hadn’t been part of the plan. Talking to people. That was much too real. This whole thing was hypothetical. It would probably never actually come to be. She was just toying with the idea of a new life. She was doing it to impress Susi. She wanted to go back to her next appointment with her “plan” all in place. Most women probably had to be nudged along for months. Most women probably came back to their next appointment having done nothing. Not Celeste. She always did her homework.

“I’ve taken a six-month lease on a flat,” she planned to tell Susi, casually, briskly. “In McMahons Point. I could walk into North Sydney. I’ve got a friend who is a partner at a small law firm in North Sydney. She offered me a job about a year ago, and I turned it down, but I’m sure she could still find me something. Anyway, if that didn’t work out, I could get a job in the city. It’s just a short ferry ride.”