“You don’t have to play,” Francesca says, “but we’re running out of time for our compilation and we need lyrics. Think about it.”

He gets out of the car and waits for them to pull away. His stomach’s churning and he realizes that it’s a subconscious thing, seeing Francesca and Justine. That he was always used to seeing Tara with them, and he wonders if he thinks of her more often because they’re around. He wants to hear her voice again, but he can’t bear the idea that she could be lying beside some guy, some pasty-faced soldier.

He turns when he hears a sound behind him and sees that it’s his father, preparing for his morning jog. Obsessive-compulsive to a T, Dom Mackee is.

His father looks at him closely as he passes him, and Tom realizes bitterly that the prick has the hide to be assessing whether he’s drunk or off his face on drugs. He wishes he was, so he could say, “Because of you.”

But neither says a word to each other, and it’s his father who puts the earphones in and looks away first.

Tom’s at her bedroom door the next morning, a look of worry on his face. Georgie winces. She’s supposed to be the adult around here and instead, this poor kid’s looking after her.

“I’m okay, Tom. I promise,” she says, shuffling out of bed.

But he’s shaking his head. “Georgie, I’m sorry.”

She grabs her dressing gown, which doesn’t even reach her sides these days.

“I got so stressed yesterday and freaked out and . . .” he’s saying.

She stops and places her hands on his shoulders. “Calm down. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m going to have a shower now and then eat breakfast. And then I’ll do the grocery shopping and tonight I’ll cook properly. I promise.”

It takes a lot of energy to speak, but she doesn’t want him to see that.

“I rang Nanni Grace and Bill yesterday because I was worried about you,” he says.

She nods. She wants to get that look off Tom’s face. “I’ll ring them today and tell them I’m okay, Tommy — I promise.”

He’s pointing outside and then down. Tom was always a pointer. Pointed at his food as a substitute for words.

She hears barking.

“They’re downstairs, Georgie. And they brought the dogs. And big suitcases.”

Oh, my God.

She’s out the bedroom door in a moment. “Mummy!” she calls out from the top of the stairs. The dogs respond to the sound of her voice and she clutches the banister as they come bounding up the stairs.

And there she is. Amazing Grace. A grief-ravaged face, but the beauty and style is still there. No unruly hair for Grace Mackee. She’s all sleek bob cut and lipstick.

“Bill. Get the dogs off Georgie!”

“Bruno! Bazzi!”

Lots of bellowing.

Dominic stands behind their parents, at the bottom of the stairs. A bit shell-shocked really. When Georgie reaches them, Grace does that practical thing where she hugs her quickly and pats her on the back without lingering. Just one second more, Grace, Georgie wants to say. Just one second.

“Bill will get some breakfast.”

“Is Bill going to get the dogs, or is Bill going to get breakfast?” Bill asks. Dom gets his drawl from Bill. It’s a Burdekin drawl, no matter how many decades he’s lived down south. Georgie hugs her stepfather awkwardly and he holds on. Maybe that’s why she has resented him all her life. Because he would hold on longer, when she wanted it to come from her mother. He looks worn out. Although still fit and working outdoors fixing tractors in Albury, Joe’s death had aged him. Around him the dogs are going insane and everyone’s falling over one another with suitcases.

“Do you want the spare room or the study?” Dom asks, and Grace agrees that the spare room is the way to go.

Georgie tries to wash up the plates from the last two days quickly, ashamed at how untidy the house looks. In the past, if she’d known her parents were coming, she would be spring cleaning for a week.

Her mother comes up behind her, holding a small diary. “What do you think, Georgie? Should I change Bill’s November checkups to now, seeing we’re here?”

“That sounds good, Mum.”

“But as long as your father doesn’t drive. As soon as we hit Sydney, he was useless. I told him the whole time not to take the Hume Highway. Do you think he listened to me?”

“Organize it with Dom and he can drive you both around.”

“He’s getting Alzheimer’s. I’m sure of it.”

“I’m not getting Alzheimer’s,” Bill says, walking into the kitchen with a box of produce they’ve brought up from Albury. Dom’s behind him with another and begins stacking some of it in the fridge.

“Great,” Georgie whispers to her brother as they huddle at the fridge door. “Bill gets Alzheimer’s and has an excuse to forget what a bastard he was all those years.”

The doorbell rings and she thinks it’s the neighbors coming to complain already, so she rushes to answer the door. To Sam.

“Where were you?” she blurts out. She doesn’t mean to make it sound like an accusation, but it’s out of her mouth before she can stop it.

“I told you I was in Melbourne. Shit, Georgie. Do you ever listen to me?” He’s not happy. “Next time I come back to you looking like this, you’re moving in with Lucia and Abe.”

It’s not until the dogs come running toward them that she notices that Callum is with him.

“Hi, Georgie.”

“Hi.”

And suddenly Grace is there, looking from Georgie to Sam and then the kid.

“Hello, Sam,” her mother says quietly.

“Grace.” He leans forward to hug her. It’s all a bit awkward. There was Sam who was like a son-in-law for seven years, Sam the adulterer who they didn’t see for years, Sam the savior who was around for Joe’s death, and now Sam the impregnator of their daughter, standing on her front porch with his son by his side.

Grace looks down at the kid.

“You better come inside,” she says. “Bill wants the door shut to keep the dogs in.”

Sam looks awkward. Georgie, defeated. Once Callum crosses the threshold, she doesn’t know what will happen. It changes the rules completely, although she isn’t quite sure what the rules are. The kid seems entranced. Usually there’s intrigue about Georgie’s front door. A whole lot of quiet and the mystery of what’s beyond there. But there are dogs barking and people bellowing, and Tom’s being a smart-arse and accompanying it all to music, strumming his guitar in a fast Spanish piece. He comes up behind her in the corridor, serenading over his grandmother’s shoulder, and then he looks down at Callum as well.

“Tom and Grace, this is Callum,” Sam says with a sigh.

The kid giggles at Tom’s antics, and the dogs come bounding. Georgie has no choice but to usher them in and shut the door.

That day, while planning a getaway in his head from the Mackee/Finch circus, he receives an e-mail from taramarie. Not exactly an e-mail, but a link to the Lenina Crowne Fan Club website.

Like he does most times when he thinks of Tara Finke lately, he smiles. And types. And decides he has nothing to lose.

To: taramarie@yahoo.com

From: anabelsbrother@hotmail.com

Date: 15 August 2007

Dear Finke,

Flattered that you remembered my obsession with Lenina Crowne. So I must have told you that Huxley’s Brave New World was the porn of my Year Twelve year. Took me ages to work it out that it wasn’t her physical description or sexual liberation or curiosity that turned me on, but the voice of the vixen who read the part of Lenina in 12A English every lesson for four weeks.

Tom

To: anabelsbrother@hotmail.com