At last, after endless hours of lobbying the slow-moving parents, it was time for the real fireworks. Beer bottle in hand, their father strolled theatrically to the center of the yard, pulled at his trouser knees, squatted down, and did something mysterious and clever with his cigarette lighter.

“Wait till you see this one, girls!” he said to his daughters. Seconds later—bang! The air exploded in color.

“Oooh!” exclaimed everyone at each new firework. “Aaaaah!”

It felt like their dad was creating the fireworks himself. It was wonderful. Cat was pretty sure that it was the best night of her entire life. So it was typical that Mum had to try and ruin it.

“Let one of the other men have a turn now, Frank,” she kept saying, and Cat hated her mother’s hard, whiny tone and the way it was getting sharper and sharper. She was probably just jealous of Dad for having the fun job, while she was stuck handing around cups of tea.

“For God’s sake, hurry, Frank!”

He stood grinning in the center of the yard, challenging her with his chin, taking a slow, deliberate sip of his beer. “Relax, Max babe.”

And then it happened.

Frank lit a Roman candle and was still on his knees, unsteadily peering down at it. “Frank!” their mother warned. This time Gemma caught her mother’s fear. “Hurry, Daddy!” she called, and Lyn and Cat gave each other looks that said, She’s such a baby!

Frank stood up, took a step back, and the Roman Candle exploded. The beer bottle fell to the ground as he held out his hands, palms down, as if he could stop the firework from exploding.

Cat, Gemma, and Lyn watched their father’s ring finger get blown cleanly off his hand. It went hurtling through the air illuminated in sharp detail by a flash of brilliant purples and greens.

He collapsed backward into a silly sitting position, like a clown, clutching his hand. There was a strange sweet fragrance in the air, the smell of their father’s sizzling flesh.

“You stupid, stupid man!” Their mother’s voice was a furious wail. She stalked across the yard toward him, her high heels sinking into the grass.

“Girls. Inside, now!” And they all had to go inside to the TV room and sit with Pop and Nana Kettle. Sammy Barker got to find their father’s finger where it had fallen into the rosebush underneath their parents’ bedroom window.

Cat never forgave her mother for that. She should have been the one to find her dad’s finger, not snotty-nosed Sammy, who gained instant celebrity status at St. Margaret’s Primary.

It was only a few months later that their dad packed his things and moved into a flat in the city. They couldn’t save his finger. He kept it floating in a jar of formaldehyde. It was brought out from his bathroom cupboard with much ceremony for especially privileged guests.

Now that should keep Annie satisfied. And how pleasingly symbolic! It was their father’s ring finger that got blown off! A symbol of their parents’ explosive marriage.

Of course it was one of Dan’s favorite family stories too. “Awesome!” he said when he heard it for the first time. At dinner parties, he told the story as if he’d been there too.

If Dan had been one of the neighborhood kids, Sammy Barker would have had no chance at finding that finger.

Lifting the champagne bottle from the ice bucket, she held it by the neck and refilled her glass. She hiccuped as she settled herself back against the tree.

Maybe she should just forgive him. Maybe she did forgive him.

After all, didn’t she herself have fantasies about Dan’s uni friend, Sean? Every time they went out with Sean and his irrelevant wife, Cat would feel her cheeks start to go pink after her third glass of wine, as shocking images popped unbidden into her mind.

It was alcohol. Alcohol was a terrible, terrible thing, she thought and held up the champagne bottle to look at it accusingly.

Perhaps she could just choose to stop being angry, as recommended by Lyn’s self-help gurus.

She felt a sense of wonderful well-being at the thought. It was like recovering from the flu, when you suddenly realized that your body was functioning normally again.

Her mobile phone beeped. It was a text message from Dan:

Where R U? Did not go to party. Waiting at home 4 U. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. XXX

Carefully, Cat got to her feet, pulled her skirt back down to her knees, and, leaving the empty bottle and ice bucket on the ground, began to walk toward the ferry.

“Well! Here we are again!” Annie had gone for a nautical theme today. She wore a blue-and-white-striped shirt and a little red scarf tied jauntily around her neck. Her eyes were clear and dewy. Cat and Dan regarded her with bleary awe. They’d been up all night, drinking and crying.

“Now, you’re a triplet, Cat!”

“Yes!” said Cat, failing to match her enthusiasm.

“Now, a lot of triplets have unusually strong relationships with their siblings. Yes?” said Annie.

Oh, Christ. Annie had obviously been foraging through her old textbooks since their last meeting.

“Now, what I’d like to look at today is Dan’s relationship with your sisters!”

“What about our homework?” asked Cat.

Annie looked confused. She obviously didn’t remember the homework.

“Well, yes, but first let’s look at this. I think it’s important. Dan?”

Dan smiled.

“I get on well with her sisters,” he said. “Always have done.”

Annie nodded encouragingly.

“Actually,” said Dan. “I even dated one of them before Cat.”

An invisible fist punched the air from Cat’s lungs.

“What are you talking about?”

Dan looked at her. “You knew that!”

“No, I didn’t.”

“But of course you did!” said Dan nervously.

Cat’s heart was hammering. “Which one?” Gemma. It would be Gemma. Dan was looking at her beseechingly, Annie was quivering with professional pride at this breakthrough.

“Which one?” insisted Cat.

“Lyn,” he said. “It was Lyn.”

CHAPTER 5

“But surely she knew that!”

“I never told her.”

“Why not?”

“It was complicated.” Lyn buttered Michael a piece of raisin toast and put it on his plate. “She’s not eating anything, you know.”