Released from work a few hours later, Alice slumped on the same couch she’d lain on as a child—albeit reupholstered—only unlike when she was a kid, no one was home to fuss over her, stroke her forehead and tell her a favorite story. Although it had been years since either Karen or Peter had recounted the story of her birth—her surprise arrival twenty minutes after Libby’s—it was part of the Hunter family’s folklore. Not once as either a kid or an adult had Alice ever begrudged Libby her first-born status. Her theatrical soul preferred the story of her more exciting birth.

Her parents were out of town on their annual Melbourne vacation. They maintained that the big city in January was far more peaceful than Kurnai Bay, and they had a point. In previous years, Karen and Peter had stayed with Alice in her beloved Victorian terrace house in leafy Albert Park. This year, they’d rented a two-bedroom apartment in Docklands through Airbnb. They’d wanted Alice to come with them and although part of her appreciated their invitation, she’d rather walk over shards of glass than visit Melbourne. It hurt a little that her parents didn’t understand that.

Alice’s bug, which had been busy lobbing its fever and energy-stealing weaponry on her body, finally reached her mind. It easily breached the defenses she’d spent months bricking into place. Helplessly, she felt herself tumbling back into the quagmire of despair that had claimed her once before and she’d fought so hard to leave. A sob rose to the back of her throat and combining with her snot-clogged nose, she choked. Coughing violently, she sat up fast. Tubby, the family’s elderly cat, meowed indignantly and sank his claws into Alice’s thighs to stall his slide off her lap.

“Ouch! Play nice, Tubby.” She leaned over the cat and grabbed tissues before lying back on the cushions. So, this was what her wonderful life had been reduced to? She was thirty-three and a half, ambivalently single, back living under her parents’ roof, working minimum wage jobs, and so full of goop she couldn’t cry and breathe at the same time. Hell, she couldn’t even be sick right.

Her phone rang and she snatched it up. “Hi, Libs.”

“You sound like death warmed up,” her twin said.

“Summer cold.”

“Poor you. It’s going around. Thank God, I’m on a half-day. The clinic’s been full of sad-sack tourists for two days and I’m over the monotony of doling out tissues and sympathy. By 11:00, I found myself daydreaming about broken bones and chest pain.”

Alice laughed, immediately coughed and imagined Libby holding the phone away from her ear. She managed a strangled, “Sorry.”

“I was calling to invite you for dinner. Nick’s barbecuing and Jess is coming, but it sounds like you need to stay in bed.”