Now, Paula shook off that remembered scene, gulped a breath, and walked out of the bathroom. But she couldn’t stop the memories coming. Next she saw Cameron, the day the family moved in with her. This beautiful, earnest boy, his face pinched with anxiety. Paula saw him prowling the whole house, checking the window latches, making a mental inventory of external doors, escape routes, potential dangers. According to Stacey, Cam felt it was his job to ensure the safety of his mother and sister.

Paula squeezed her eyes shut to rid her mind of that memory, then opened them to find herself in the spot Matt had been standing when he shot himself. And in that moment, she was hit by an image that forced its way into her brain like something whooshing up under pressure from deep under water: she saw herself with a scalpel in her hand, slicing into Matt’s neck until she severed his carotid artery. In this urgent fantasy, she saw him fall to the floor, bleeding out rapidly, as still and harmless as a cadaver in an anatomy class.

When Anita went back to Paula’s place after the funeral, she guzzled two big goblets of shiraz very quickly. She figured she should get well pissed to reduce the risk that her first time being in this house again would freak her out. Paula had moved home more than a week ago and seemed to be handling it.

Mind you, Anita noticed Paula was also knocking back the wine, as the two of them picked at a platter of food left over from the post-funeral afternoon tea. The congealed fattiness of the cold mini quiches needed to be washed down with even more gulps of shiraz.

Paula yanked the clip out of her hair and shook her head to loosen the spongy curls. She had kept her hair exactly the same ever since Anita had known her—long brown hair, naturally wavy, worn tied back when she was working or attending formal events like funerals, left loose around her face when she was off-duty. When Paula was nine, her mother had taken her daughter to a salon and requested the child’s hair be cut short and square—a style known thereafter as ‘the Doctor Spock Hairdo’. Anita had seen a photo and it really was as alarming as described. Typically, Paula herself made a compassionate diagnosis: her mother had been overwhelmed at the time and wanted to reduce maintenance of her daughter’s long knotty hair. But in her quiet way, Paula asserted herself—never again allowing her hair to be cut, not ever, apart from minor trimming.