“Take photos for me, Dad?”

“For sure, sweetheart.”

“Especially of the tree,” she laughed. “How bad is it this year?” As much as her family Christmases felt claustrophobic at times, she cherished their tradition of finding the worst tree in the forest—one that no one else would want—then draping it in as many homemade decorations as possible. Chloe would have hated it, she realised, thinking of the department-store-ready tree that dominated the living room.

“We have hit optimal awfulness, an extremely poor specimen. But I think it may have baffled Lucy. I’m guessing from her reaction that you didn’t warn her.”

Jules laughed, “Oh, no, poor Lucy! I totally forgot about that.” The thought made a U-turn in her mind as she remembered that things weren’t right with Lucy—totally her doing. Feeling the sting of remorse, she added, “Hey, Dad, so how is Lucy?”

“Oh, sweetheart, if we can’t have you here, it’s almost as good having Lucy. She’s a doll.”

Jules gulped down the lump in her throat.

“Is she there? Can I talk to her?”

“Sure. Hold on.” She could tell her dad was on the move, because the screen blurred, and she had to look away so she didn’t get motion sickness.

Her mom’s face appeared on the screen. “Merry Christmas, honey.”

“Oh, Mom, hi! Merry Christmas. You look beautiful.”

Her mom laughed off the compliment as she always did. “So how was your Aussie Christmas?” In her mom’s accent, it came out as “Oss-ee”.

“Great! Really different from home, though. Ash put on this awesome Christmas lunch. You’ll see when you check my Insta feed. We set this epic table and we all dressed up for a formal sit-down meal. We had ham, like at home, but everything else was a complete departure. We even had this massive platter of shrimp, or ‘prawns’, they say here. So good. Oh, and I baked my Christmas cookies. Total hit.” Her mom grinned at her.

“That sounds fun, honey. And what about Chloe’s friends? You’re having a good time?”

“Yeah, I mean, Ash’s been amazing, schlepping me about Melbourne. She’s almost as hard core with her organising as Chloe is, but all the heavy lifting’s over now, so hopefully she’ll just chill out for the next few days. There’s this whole thing with her ex that I won’t go into, but he was here yesterday, and he’s so sweet, and he’s obviously still into her … Anyway, I hope they figure it out.

“Oh, and we’re going away for a couple of days,” Jules added.

“You and Ash?”

“Yeah, and um, this guy, Matt. Actually, he’s a winemaker and we’re going to his vineyard.” She was playing it down, hoping her budding crush on Matt wasn’t too obvious, but her mom had always been able to tell when she was hiding something—like her feelings. “I miss you, Mom,” she said spontaneously.

“We miss you too, honey. Did you want to say hello to your brother? He’s right here.”

“Oh yeah, sure, but actually … I thought Dad was handing me over to Lucy.”