Milt’s phone rang. He glanced at it, stabbed at the screen and put it to his ear. “Hello, Natalie.” Behind him four women all stopped what they were doing and listened.

When Milt answered within seconds of Natalie pressing call she shifted anxiously in her seat, feeling even more guilty for her long silence. She’d hardly given her family a thought for days. Earlier the wind had dropped to a gentle breeze as Rosie had predicted. They’d had a successful fishing expedition and now Natalie sat in the shade of the cabin verandah, fresh from a shower and wearing the dress she’d bought in Broome. It was a change from a week of nothing but bathers, shorts and t-shirts. The Model Wife sat on the table beside her. She’d found it again when she’d searched her all-but-empty case for a pair of earrings.

She’d picked it up, sat it on her lap, trying to resist the urge to open it but couldn’t help herself. It was her past, part of her Before Anomaly life but also an heirloom, even if a desecrated one, and she’d made it into a record of so many happy times. Eventually she succumbed and slowly turned the pages, reading the chapter headings, the words that had been scribbled in laughter and in anger over the years. She’d paused at the photo of the house – not just a house, her home, her family’s home – then stopped at the career page where she’d stuck her individual school staff photo. It was dated 1999, the same year Laura started school. Natalie had smiled at her hair – it had been longer then and she remembered she’d had it styled the day before the photo so it was all fluffed out around her face. How young she looked.

She’d flicked to the last chapter, the one about family. ‘Family before all else’ was the title. The model wife bears children and cares for them diligently. Well, she’d certainly done that. The model wife spends her time taking care of her family and putting them before her own needs. Olive wouldn’t agree that Natalie had followed that golden rule, and if Natalie was being honest, neither did she. And now it was too late. They were grown up, they didn’t need her any longer, not really.

That’s when she’d reached for her phone, eager to look at their faces. She’d scrolled through photos, stopping at any she found of her girls, and once they’d run out she’d re-read the text she’d last sent home. It seemed like only a few days ago but she realised a week had gone by, and she’d selected Milt’s number.

“How are things there?” she asked now, feeling like she was asking an acquaintance rather than her husband.

“Good. Everything’s good,” he said. “We’ve had an inch of rain today.”