‘I think you give your love life way too much credit. There have been bigger scandals in town since yours, you know.’
‘Like what?’ Bel asked, curious despite herself.
‘Like Susan McDonald cheating on Alfie with Bruce Allsop, then Alfie going off and having an affair with Bruce’s wife, Cheryl.’
‘Really?’ Bel remembered Cheryl Allsop being a quiet, church-going woman in her late fifties, not at all like someone who would have an affair in retaliation.
‘Then there was the whole Danny Limburg thing.’
‘Who’s Danny Limburg?
‘He was the stepfather of Josie Cunningham. You remember her, she went to school with us for a few years, left in like Year Nine or something.’
‘Oh. Yeah.’
‘Well, Danny left her mother … and married Josie.’
‘Get. Out. Of. Town,’ Bel gasped. ‘That’ssowrong.’
‘Apparently, it’s true love.’ Emma said with a doubtful sigh. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, snapping Bel from her abject horror, ‘you aren’t returning with a broken heart and your tail between your legs. You have a successful business. You’re self-employed. You have nothing to be ashamed of.’
She supposed that much was true.
‘You don’t have to decide straight away. Stop thinking about it for a while. You’ll know what you want to do when the time’s right.’
They said goodnight and Bel felt a little better. Em was right—as usual. Just like the kids, perhaps she could use a bit of a distraction, andmaybeDean was just the distraction she needed to take her mind off her uncertain future.
‘Lucy! Ivy! Do you have your socks on?’ Bel called from the kitchen bench on Monday morning, as she fumbled with the plastic film she was using to wrap the sandwiches.
‘My sock feels funny! I can’t wear it,’ Lucy yelled back.
‘Ben? Are you dressed?’
‘I can’t find my green tractor.’
‘We don’t have time to play with your tractor, mate. We need to get to school.’
‘It’s for show and tell! I need it!’
Bel sent another frantic glance at the clock on the wall and swore.
‘You have to put a dollar in the swear jar,’ Ayla said in a sing-song voice as she sat on a stool, swinging her legs.
‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘Can I say that word?’ Ivy asked, coming into the kitchen.
‘No. It’s a grown-up word.’
‘How come grown-ups can say bad words?’
‘They shouldn’t,’ Bel conceded, biting back another bad word as the cling wrap stuck to everything except what she wanted it to. ‘How the hell does your mother do this every day?’
‘Another dollar!’ Ayla chortled.
‘Hell isn’t a swear word,’ Bel argued.
‘What the hell?’ Ivy said, staring at the lunch Bel had packed.
