‘Rach, do you mind if I call you back? I’ve just got home.’

Sonny trotted down the front steps.

‘Oh, you don’t need to,’ Rachel said. ‘I was just checking in.’

‘I’d like to, though. It would be nice to –’

Sonny yanked open the passenger door. His face was like thunder. And he hadn’t even seen what was in the back seat. This was going be bad.

‘Why is there a six-hundred-dollar charge on the credit card, Tully?’

5

RACHEL

Rachel stood in the kitchen in front of three enormous chocolate mud cakes. They were for a wedding cake for Peter and Emily, a couple who were so particular about their cake that they came for three tastings last month, along with the entire bridal party and both sets of parents. Rachel wasn’t prone to stress, but she’d had the odd anxiety dream about this cake. She’d started making the sugar flowers five days before. They were made petal by petal and took hours. Last night, she’d dreamed that she’d accidentally lain in a bed of sugar flowers and ground each one into dust. Bizarrely, Heather and Dad had also been in that dream. And why not? They’d been in her every waking thought ever since their lunch.

She threw a couple of chocolate buttons into her mouth, and then realised the packet was finished – the second packet she’d finished this morning. This morning when she got dressed, her underwear had felt tight. Her underwear! Rachel was not the sort who weighed herself, or worried about weight gain, but she’d noticed her weight creeping up lately. Her thighs, her breasts . . . even her face was rounder. She attributed the stress-eating to everything that had been going on in the family. Everyone had their coping mechanisms. This was hers. Better than drugs, she told herself! Or was it? She had to admit, in a lot of ways, it was exactly the same as drugs. A way to obliterate. A way to hide.

When she’d called Tully yesterday, she’d wanted to unpack the lunch with Heather. It had been a gamble, obviously. Tully was rarely a good person to unpack things with, at least metaphorically speaking. Literally, she was a fantastic person to unpack with. She had helped Rachel move last year and the entire house had been unpacked in twelve hours, efficiently, with a clear system. But when it came to mentally unpacking things, it was trickier. Tully tended to become caught up in emotion and Rachel preferred to remain clear-headed and practical. Still, Rachel had to try. After all, no one in the world understood what she was going through as well as Tully did.

But as soon as Tully answered the phone, Rachel regretted calling. For one thing, Tully was in the car and she was always mildly hysterical in the car. Sure enough, she’d immediately started rattling on about the boys and running and then, just as Rachel thought they were getting to the heart of things, she hung up. So that, she supposed, was that.