My mind shoots off in multiple directions. What did Nina say? Something about sometimes being friends with people through necessity rather than personal choice. Perhaps Camilla and Stuart had a history, too? Unlikely. Stuart wasn’t Camilla’s type. Then again, no one thought he was Nina’s. Fresh determination bubbles. Camilla stole from me once in front of my very eyes; this time they’re wide-open and watching, crocodile-like.

As Camilla’s blurring red taillights fade into the darkness, I realize something important. Being here, it no longer feels solely about survival and loyalty; it’s about entitlement.

Ten

Stuart’s parents are not how I recall at all. If I had to describe Stuart in one word, the overriding one that springs to mind is serious. Kevin and Suzanne are friendly, fun and have such a brilliant sense of humor, I feel at immediate ease. The relief is immense. I realize that I’ve subconsciously been bracing myself to defend my role (yet again) and it’s a luxury to relax and not watch every word, to not continually walk the tightrope between genuine grief and allowing life to move on with Nina still very much cemented in our collective memories.

Kevin and Suzanne naturally have questions, but—and this is the bit I’ve found the most surprising, although it’s blindingly obvious—they didn’t truly know Nina. Of course they didn’t. The first time they met her was around the same time they met me at the wedding party Stuart and Nina held on a Brisbane beach. They flew out once for a few weeks after the births of both Felix and Em, but I wasn’t invited to the house at the time. Other than that, Nina was almost a stranger to them.

The joyous possibility that this is an area that I can excel in, that I don’t have to try to be as good or better than Nina, that I can actually be myself—on my own terms—is exhilarating. It opens my mind to fresh perspectives and possibilities.

From the outside looking in at Nina’s life, everything was near-enough perfect. In my mind, even her relationship with her mother-in-law was sickly sweet. I pictured long Skype calls every Sunday evening, thoughtful, beautifully wrapped parcels traveling halfway across the world every Christmas and birthday. We mistakenly, I realize now, forced Nina to defend her decision to marry Stuart (everyone thought she was too young to get tied down, especially to someone dull and older) so maybe she rigidly stuck to the script of an idealized version of her own life.

Cracks I never imagined existed crisscross through my mental version of Nina. Maybe she realized that she wasn’t as wonderful as she liked to portray and knew, deep down, that I was the person who could protect her family from any mistakes she’d made. I’ve never really got the true meaning of schadenfreude. Until now. By experiencing a delicious sliver of it, it forces painful acknowledgement that I’m flawed. It’s not pleasant.

“Stuart and Nina’s wedding day was everything I’d ever dreamed of,” I say to Christian. I wonder how he can bear listening to all the random rubbish that people like me come out with: Stuart’s parents’ visit, my insecurities—all the while I try to hide my true feelings from him as I don’t want to appear like some sort of monster. If I had the choice, of course I’d rather that Nina was alive, that Felix and Emily had their mother, that I was with Ben and we had our own baby. I couldn’t have tried harder at times to make my relationship with him work; my conscience is clear on that one. But that’s not how things have worked out, and I’ve been forced to be adaptable and open-minded. Life moves on whether any of us like it or not.