‘False confessions. Both of them say they were verballed, beaten at the watch house until they signed.’

On Wednesday, he’d come into the kitchen and kissed me goodbye so early I wasn’t even dressed.

‘We’re doing a final edit today, showing it to Reid. I reckon we can get it to air this week.’

‘That soon?’

‘What do you mean? I’ve been working on this for months.’

‘I know that. We all know that.’

‘Try to be happy for me, will you?’

‘Sorry. Just, I dunno.’ I shrugged. ‘I’ll be stuck at the pool all day with the kids.’

He’d reached over, taken a piece of my toast. ‘Stuart’s sewn his lips together with paperclips.’

‘My God, why?’

‘To protest.’

‘Is this the same one who swallows chunks of metal and wire? Is hospital that much better than jail?’

‘Everywhere’s better than Boggo Road.’ He rubbed the top of Petey’s head. ‘See you tonight, champ. Where are your sisters?’

‘They’re dumbheads.’ Petey had a milk moustache, and a smear of Vegemite on his nose.

‘Girls,’ I called out. ‘Come say goodbye to Dad.’

They ran down the hallway. Mark hugged our smiling, dishevelled girls then turned back to me. ‘Hope your day’s not too terrible.’

‘I didn’t mean – That’s awful about the paperclips.’

‘Don’t feel sorry for him. He’s nuts. They’d both kill you in your sleep. But they didn’t bomb that nightclub.’ We kissed goodbye.

I’d stared out the window to calm myself so I didn’t snap at the children – their inane bickering, their tugs for attention. None of it warranted my rising fury. I wasn’t that angry at them, nor was I angry at Mark. I liked to swim. But some days felt so incredibly pointless, so driven by other people’s needs and desires, that the steam built inside me until I wanted to shout. I didn’t. Instead, I wiped a scatter of breadcrumbs from the benchtop into my scooped palm while I listened to the radio. Last year, Mark’s colleague Caroline reported a story called Housewife, in which she’d calculated what household tasks would be worth if we were paid for them in the working world. She’d only included the obvious: cooking, buying food, dishes, laundry, mending, ironing, vacuuming, making beds, taking care of kids, feeding pets. And sex. It’d caused a stir at the time. And nothing changed.

Paperclips. What a strange thing to use.

Life had once felt expansive – large and elastic enough to hold the things Mark and I loved to do, our Saturday tennis matches, pub lunches with friends at Caloundra overlooking the beach, drives to Mt Glorious, watching bands, seeing movies, sex in the afternoon, eating dinner in bed and then more sex, with space left for dreams about the future. Life was smaller now. Somewhere along the way I’d lost myself, and my life with Mark had become tethered to this house, governed by so many rules and such a different set of activities.

I’d turned back to my children. Sarah spotted her opening, told me Petey was kicking her, then yelped for dramatic effect. I laughed and raised my coffee mug at her, confusing them both.