Maybe it was fine. Surely, she’d only had one or two, hadn’t she?

‘Yep,’ she said. ‘Ready to go.’

*

Andrea

A two-minute look-in just to be sure and then she’d be able to relax at dinner tonight. Andrea held still at the door, trying to listen and judge whether or not Heather was home. After a few seconds of listening though, she couldn’t be certain so she knocked and then stood back to wait. A moment later, the door swung inwards and she saw a beaming Heather wearing a blue and white checked apron with flour down the front, a spatula in her hand.

Heather’s expression darkened when she saw who it was. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked, her voice clipped.

Violet appeared behind her mother, a look of pure glee on her face, a smear of chocolate icing on her cheek. ‘Hi, Andrea!’ she exclaimed.

‘Oh hi. Are you . . . doing some baking?’

‘You came by to ask if I’m baking?’ said Heather, moving her body just slightly so that it was clear she was blocking Violet from stepping around her and getting any closer to Andrea.

‘What? Oh . . . uh, no. I came by to . . . ask if I could borrow a cup of sugar.’ It was the first thing that came to mind and even though Heather would be able to see through it — a cup of sugar, what a bloody cliché — it was the best she could do. If she admitted she was there to check up on Violet, Heather would probably explode. Maybe it would even ruin the clearly happy moment mother and daughter were finally sharing for once. She should never have knocked. Tony was right when he said she needed to stay out of it.

‘But I can see you’re busy so don’t worry about the sugar,’ Andrea said, backing away from the door.

‘Okay, great,’ Heather said.

Andrea saw two things as the door shut in her face. A look of smug superiority on Heather’s face and a look of sad confusion on Violet’s.

*

Mimi

When she saw the red and blue lights in the distance, her stomach plummeted. An RBT set up in the precise point where they often were on a Friday evening or sometimes a Saturday morning, catching people who’d had too much the night before and didn’t realise it was still in their system. Would they breath-test both of them? Or just Callie as the driver? What were they doing there on a Monday night? Who was out drinking on a Monday? I suppose I was, she thought, feeling angry with herself.

‘Stay calm,’ she murmured.

‘I am calm,’ Callie snapped. ‘I know how an RBT works.’