“What about Auntie Margie Finch?” Grace asks.

“Maybe when it’s born. You cover the family, Mum. Sam, have you called your mother? She’ll be hurt if Grace is there and she isn’t.”

She waves to one of her neighbors, who’s walking home.

“Having the baby,” she calls out to her.

It’s long. Longer than he imagines, and it makes him think the worst. It makes everyone think the worst — he can see it on their faces, especially Nanni Grace. They have to get used to not thinking the worst. It’s so long that there are discussions about who comes and goes and if someone should take Sam’s kid home to his own mother, but then everyone decides to stay except for Lucia, who has to get home to her kids. She nudges Tom and points discreetly to Nanni Grace and Tom goes and sits with her, because he can see her hands are trembling and she won’t let Bill hold them. He knows she won’t slap Tom’s, so he takes hers in his. But then Sam’s there, hours later, with a bundle of blue hospital blanket in his hands and everyone’s crowded around him and he looks a bit shell-shocked, but he bobs down in front of his kid and shows him the baby. The kid looks at it and begins crying, because of all the attention. And then Nanni Grace is crying and it doesn’t look like happy crying either. She buckles and Tom’s dad catches her and they sit his nan down. Bill goes and gets a glass of water and Tom’s there in the midst of it all, clutching Nanni Grace’s hand because he wants to make it better. He wants to make his whole family better, but he knows he can’t.

“I want to be with my Georgie,” Nanni Grace is crying. She hasn’t even looked at the baby yet. Sam helps her up.

“And Georgie wants to be with you, Grace,” he says gently. “Can you take Callum’s hand?”

“I want to hold your hand,” the kid says, and Sam takes his son’s hand.

And it’s like no one knows how to celebrate just yet.

“What’s his name?” Dominic asks.

Sam looks down at the baby for a moment.

“Bill,” he says huskily, looking up at them all. “Bill Finch Thompson.”

When she wakes up, the first thing she sees is the humidicrib. Then she sees Sam sleeping in the armchair, holding Callum. They had both decided that his son shouldn’t miss out on any of the excitement. And for the life of her, Georgie can’t imagine wanting to wake up to more than this. Granted, she’ll want more than this during her day, but this is what she wants to wake up to.

As if he senses her, Sam opens his eyes, a half smile on his face and then a bit of pain as he tries to stretch without waking up Callum.

“Ask her for joint custody,” Georgie says, and it takes a moment of misreading his expression for her to understand that he’s actually misreading her. “I want you to move back in. We need to bring up these boys together. I need happiness. I deserve it. No more than anyone else, but I’m no good for this baby if I’m all self-sacrifice and restraint, and nor are you.”

She stops speaking, knowing the power she possesses in this moment. Wasn’t that what it was all about? Who grabs the power and holds on to it and uses it for the rest of their life? But Georgie has never seen power on someone’s face look beautiful. She’s seen it look smug and twisted, with a squint of the eyes, a haughtiness and arrogance, but never beautiful. This kid deserves beauty. Both these boys do.

“I actually wouldn’t mind getting married,” she says. “What are your thoughts?”

He doesn’t speak and when she looks up at him again, she can see Sam’s crying.

Francesca drops Tom off on Devonshire Street at Central Station and he grabs the pack from the boot.

“You’ll get a fine,” he tells her. She has a total disregard for all street signs that begin with No.

“Try to enjoy yourself, no matter how sad it is.” She kisses his cheek, unemotional and practical. She even pats him on the back and gives him the thumbs-up.

“Cheers,” he says, and walks away, amazed at how effortless it all is.

At the bottom of the stairs, he turns to look up. She’s still there and he can’t help walking back up to her, because he thinks he’ll never be able to help himself when it comes to the girls. He holds her against him and they stay like that for a long while.

“No listening to the news every hour,” he says. She nods, and he feels her tears trapped against his neck. “And tell Justine that if she doesn’t ring the violinist, I will.”

He kisses her and wants to beg her and the others to never give up on him. Ever. But he gets a feeling that he would be preaching to the converted.

He’s lying on the couch at his grandma Agnes’s flat when his phone rings. He wonders when he will ever stop feeling excited at the word Finke appearing on his screen, or taramarie in his mailbox.

“Hey,” he says and he’s grinning. Like an idiot, he’s grinning.

They haven’t spoken since the e-mail exchange about the one-and-a-half-night stand and the mayhem in-between of baby Bill.

“Hey to you, too,” she says, and he can hear laughter in her voice. “Guess what? My dad is flying me to Sydney for a couple of days for the election. I’ll be in tomorrow, until Monday.”

The euphoria sails out of him and frustration sets in. More than frustration. Anger at the universe.

“I’m flying out to Hanoi tomorrow with my father and my grandfather,” he says flatly.

“What time?” she asks, the laughter beginning to leave her voice. “I’m not coming in until late in the afternoon. We might be able to see each other at the airport,” she adds.

“I’m in Brisbane, Tara. I’m with my mother and Anabel. My flight tomorrow connects with my father’s and Bill’s.”

“Okay,” she says quietly and now there’s nothing in her voice.

“Shit . . .”

“It’s okay,” she says. “It’s fine. I’ll be back in six weeks . . . after Christmas . . . and we’ll have a drink. . . . It’ll be cool. . . . I’ve got to go. . . . I’ve got to go, okay.”

And she hangs up on him. Just like that. Just when he wants to say a thousand other things, but she hasn’t let him. Tom’s had enough and he lies back, refusing to allow himself to dwell on whatever he’s done wrong in Tara Finke’s eyes. Again. He vows not to give it another moment’s thought. Not. One. Single. Moment’s. Thought.

“And I promise this is the last time I’m going to bring up this situation,” he says to his mother with frustration the next day. They’re at the indoor sport center in New Farm, where Anabel is filming a mini documentary about blood sport and focusing on an indoor netball team for over-thirty-fives.

“It’s not as if I chose to go overseas at this point. How did I become the bad guy here? I think I made her cry and I don’t know what I did.”

His mother is staring at him. There have been moments when her eyes have glazed over, but he just puts that down to her being tired and not the fact that he’s gone on about this Tara thing since he woke up this morning.

“You’re a bit clueless, aren’t you?” she says. “Which is strange, because Dominic was never clueless about women. He really knows how to read people.”

“Oh, yeah, he’s fantastic with people,” Tom says. “That’s why he’s living with his sister and his parents at the moment, at the age of almost forty-three. While his wife is in Brisbane and his daughter is covering a blood feud between the goal shooter and goalkeeper of this ridiculous sport.”

People are staring and he realizes that you don’t criticize netball in a room full of women wearing pleated sports skirts with whistles around their necks.

“Tom, think about it,” his mum says patiently. “She finds out she’s coming home for a couple of days and apart from seeing her parents, she knows she’s going to see you. She can’t think of anything she wants more, and then what happens? You’re not going to be there. She cried because she’s built up this moment and it’s gone. I’d be shattered. I used to hang out at Manning because I knew where Dom and his first-year law mates went when we were at Sydney Uni. I didn’t even care if I got nowhere close to him, as long as I saw him. If he wasn’t there, I’d go back to my room at the college, crying. Because I missed out on seeing him for one night! Could you imagine if I was overseas and my one window of opportunity to see him slipped through my fingers for the next few months because of circumstances beyond my control?”