but Gemma hadnât even decided what she was going to do yet â only that she would go ahead and have the baby. Keeping it was a whole other can of worms, one she was not ready to open yet. The only thing she was sure of was that the more people who knew about the pregnancy, the less chance she had of making her own decision.
âYou canât tell them, Phee,â she said seriously. âNot yet anyway, not till Iâve at least got a job and somewhere to live.â
Gemma was watching Phoebe closely, watching her put all the pieces into place, waiting for the penny to drop . . .
âUm . . . what are your plans in the meantime?â Phoebe asked tentatively.
âWell, I was kind of hoping I could crash here . . . just short-term.â
Phoebe missed a beat. âOh . . .â
âI know itâs a lot to ask ââ
âNo, no, itâs not,â Phoebe said weakly. âItâs not that . . .â
âItâs Cameron, isnât it?â Phoebeâs husband. The original man of steel. Or heâd probably prefer titanium or something more upmarket. âI know he doesnât like me, Phee.â
âMaybe that has something to do with you throwing up on his shoes the first time you met him.â
âHe still hasnât gotten over that, eh?â
Phoebe shrugged. âItâs just that he likes his privacy . . . likes things to be a certain way . . . Heâs very . . . particular.â Phoebe sighed heavily. âWhat the hell. Youâre my sister and you need us. Camâs just going to have to handle it.â
Balmain
Helen was sitting on the back step nursing a cup of tea between both hands, gazing out at the yard, waiting out the time till she could pick up Noah from preschool. The lawn desperately needed a mow, the edges a trim; a passionfruit vine runningrampant over the shed needed to be tamed. The whole yard was looking sad and overgrown. Not that it had ever been a picture â she and David werenât exactly your House and Garden kind of people. Helen thought it was probably because the house wasnât actually theirs. And now she didnât know how much longer sheâd be able to hang onto it. It had been going round and round in her head for weeks now, and she was still no closer to a solution. Mostly because she hadnât really done anything about it. Except mull. And that was getting her nowhere.
So she cleaned. She cleaned out cupboards and wiped down shelves, benches, walls, architraves, skirtings, windowsills, anything listed on the back of the bottle of SprayânâWipe. It was full of useful suggestions. Helen had sprayed and wiped parts of her house she had never thought to spray and wipe before. And it gleamed. Even Noreen had remarked how immaculate the house was looking, although sheâd said it as though it was weird. Or as though Helen was weird. Clearly she was not grieving the way Noreen and Jim expected, and they intended to do something about it. And for some reason they chose Noahâs birthday, of all times, to bring it up. It was a hard enough day as it was; Helen felt it was somehow wrong that birthdays and holidays kept on coming after someone had died. Christmas was almost another year away, mercifully, and she fully intended to ignore her own birthday this year. But she couldnât ignore Noahâs fourth birthday, and she didnât want to. Sheâd even bought him Wastelanders figures, a vexed issue that had been under discussion for a while. The Wastelanders were all Noah could talk about and all he wanted, but David had been ambivalent, despite the fact that Noah only knew of them at all because of a daily five-minute cartoon on the ABC. Surely if they were on the ABC they were okay? David was inclined to agree, except they were made in the US, and he had an inherent distrust of anything that came out of the US. However, Helen