Tari’s like my sister – she’s not blood, but it’s never mattered. When she learned to braid hair, it was mine that she tangled. When she kissed her first boy, it was me that counselled caution; when he broke her heart, I caught her. She calls me her ‘rock’, and then laughs at the cliché. This time, though, the only rock was the stone-cold lump that had settled in my belly. Dear God! I had no idea what I was looking at.Tari’s hands were clutching her robe closed. She was muttering, her voice soft with horror, “What the hell would I say? Kate? What the hell would I say?” I had no answer for her; I was groping through fear, denial and disbelief for a rationality that wasn’t there. From the moment she’d called me, panicked, in the early hours and I’d jumped into the car still in my PJs… Jesus! This was beyond bloody crazy. Sanity had packed its bags and fled. In front of me, in the princess-pink bed, Tari’s little daughter was sweetly oblivious, curled round her new favourite toy. Beside her, slumped boneless on the carpet, was Tari’s husband Rob, staring at the gently cycling nightlight.
