“Big bird.” Leo pointed to the pelican. He’d been staring at it ever since they’d arrived.

“You can touch it.” Hunter demonstrated by wiping his hand down the long and regal beak. But Leo kept a good foot gap between himself and the sculpture that dwarfed him.

“Look, Alice!” Indi was clutching a wand, wearing a tiara in her hair, a rainbow-colored T-shirt of Holly’s that fell to her knees and a Superman cape. She spun around and around, fascinated by the flow of the cape.

“You’re a very good twirler, Indi,” Harry said. “Just like Alice.”

“Alice doesn’t twirl.” Indi almost took out Leo with the wand.

Harry steered the little girl away from Leo and the coffee table. “Alice twirls. I’ve seen her do it.”

“When?” Holly and Hunter asked almost simultaneously and equally suspicious.

“In Bairnsdale. You two were at school.”

“You didn’t go go-karting, did you?” Hunter asked accusingly.

Holly crossed her arms and pouted. “It’s not fair you went to Bairnsdale without us.”

Alice hadn’t seen Holly do the dramatic teenage gesture before. Were the kids upset they’d missed out on a trip to Bairnsdale or was it something else? “Your dad and I didn’t go to Bairnsdale together. I just bumped into—”

“Alice twirled into me when I was coming out of the bookshop.”

“So, can we go go-karting this weekend?” Hunter asked, clearly relieved he hadn’t missed out.’

“Show me?” Holly demanded.

“Show you what?” Alice was fast losing track of the conversation.

“How you twirled into Dad.” Holly was pushing back furniture.

“There’s really nothing to sho—”

“Come on, Alice.” Harry laughed. “Give the audience what they want.”

Hunter started slow clapping and Holly chanted, “Twirl. Twirl. Twirl.”

“You’re all mad,” Alice said.

But Harry was grinning at her from across the room and his arm was extended toward her, encouraging her to spin. The little girls had joined in the clapping and the chanting and Leo had plonked himself down on the rug as if he expected a command performance.

“It’s really not that exciting, but if you insist …” Alice took off her scarf, unfurled it and held it above her head. “Drum roll, Hunter.”

The boy grinned and trampled his feet noisily on the bare boards.

Alice rose on her toes and spun, her full skirt billowing around her. As she twirled the length of the long room, lightness trickled through her. The horrors that had tried to bind to her over the last week, and define her existence as shameful, loosened. Her parents loved her. They’d kept her safe from a brutal man and given her the best chance in life to be happy. They’d shielded her from being tainted by her conception and birth.