“The one in the corner?”

Kate nodded.

“No. I like this one. Besides,” she added, like an afterthought, “this one is half the price.”

“Yeah, because it’ll last half the time. Bec, this one is crap. The side doesn’t even lower.”

“I didn’t even use the drop-down side on the old one for Karl. You don’t know everything, Kate, and you certainly don’t know anything about babies.”

“Did I say I knew everything? Honestly, I can’t believe you just got rid of Karlie’s cot.”

“I didn’t get rid of it, I gave it to my best friend.”

“So get her to give it back.”

“Her bub is only thirteen months—she’s still using it.”

“You know you can just say her kid is a year old, right?”

Karlie sighed and crouched low in a squat, elbows rested on her knees, head cradled in her palms. “Can you stop fighting so we can go and get meatballs upstairs?”

Kate pulled her niece to her feet, spun her beneath her hand like a ballerina. “Yes, yes, yes we can,” she said, and Karlie threw her head back with a chuckle as she tried to find her balance on the spot. She turned to Beccy. “Let’s go, Bec. You can tell me all the reasons why I’m wrong on our way down to the warehouse to pick up the one in the corner, okay?”

Beccy smoothed a hand over her protruding belly. “Honestly, I don’t know how Tilly lives with you. You’re insufferable.”

Ten minutes later, they were down in the warehouse, finally settling on the more expensive cot.

Kate loaded the three flatpacks into the trolley and, much to her niece’s delight, lifted Karlie up to sit atop the secured tower.

“I really can’t afford this,” Beccy argued.

“You don’t have to—it’s on me.”

Eyes widening, Beccy shook her head. “No, it’s not.”

“Bec, can you just leave your pride behind here in Section B, Aisle Six? Please?”

Beccy fixed her with a glare. “Fine,” she huffed as Kate pushed the trolley—and Karlie—toward the checkout. “But I’ll pay you back over the next few months. And I’ll pass it on when you have kids.”

After dropping Tilly off with her ready-made family that morning, Beccy’s innocent comment hit like a jab at Kate’s already-bruised heart. She laughed it off. “You better pass it on, considering I’m the one who’s going to build it.”

“Please, I think I can assemble a flat pack,” Beccy said. “I don’t need your help.”

As it turned out, Beccy did need her help. And that was how Kate found herself spending the afternoon in her childhood bedroom, sliding A into B and G into H and having a few tantrums of her own. After dinner, she returned to the nursery with Karlie to finish the job. “When my baby sister gets here at Christmas,” Karlie had said, “I want to tell her I built it for her all by myself.”

“Want a cuppa?”

Kate looked up from teaching Karlie how to work the Allen key to find her mother, Susan, in the doorway. “I’d love one.”