Nic confirmed that she had, as Lena’d sworn, given her the damn blu-tack. And excuse me, but what kind of nasty, punishing place was this classroom where anxious little girls were publicly shamed and accused for rolling a piece of household adhesive worth all of ten cents!

And for once—literally probably the only time ever—Michelle agreed with her. Was furious on Lena’s behalf. Made one of the trips to the principal’s office she would later become known for. Demanded the teacher apologise to Lena in front of the class and, in fact, thank you very much, congratulate her for finding something so quiet and non-disruptive to help her sit still and concentrate.

The teacher did all that and then let Lena take a lump of whichever play-doh colour she liked best to roll between her fingers in class. It had been a tough decision, because she loved purple more than anything, but if she chose that she might spend too long looking at it instead of concentrating, and so she chose her second favourite colour—yellow—and when she rolled it between her fingers she felt both calm and proud because she had solved a problem all on her own.

She told Nic all this when she came over the following Saturday and what killed Nic, just killed her, was that the darling, earnest little thing actually handed the blu-tack back to her! Said, So you can have this one back now, Aunty Nic. Can you believe the sweetness of that child?

Did the woman she’d grown into remember any of this when she’d scraped it up and discarded it? If she had, would she even care?

LENA

LENA

Lena had walked too quickly and arrived at the bar both early and sweaty. She went to the bathroom, wiped off the red lipstick which she had felt screaming from her lips the whole way here. She splashed her face with cold water, then sank into the plush armchair in the corner of the bathroom breathing in the rose oil-scented air.

A night she’d not thought of for years came back to her. Mum’s husband had a big fiftieth birthday bash in the function room of a fancy Brisbane hotel. Lena had been allowed to invite Lou and the two of them tolerated the cringiness until after the speeches and then snuck out. They needn’t have bothered sneaking; Mum and the Dick were too busy tipsily dirty dancing across the silver balloon-strewn dance floor to have noticed anything.