Owen’s return is delayed, and then delayed again. In the meantime, Rose and I busy ourselves with what she’d previously deemed to be “Owen” tasks—such as assembling the crib and the changing table and painting the nursery. I relish the opportunity to be busy to take my mind off the baby, Billy, Mum, Wally—all of the things I’ve lost or am losing.

One morning at the library, I find myself making small talk with Gayle. It starts out normal, with her asking me how I’ve been—a question that I’ve always found difficult to answer. Usually I ignore this kind of question, pretend I didn’t hear, but today, on a whim, I decide to indulge her.

“Are you inquiring after my physical health, Gayle?”

She appears to think about this, as if she herself isn’t entirely sure. After contemplating for a few moments, she says, “I suppose I’m asking if anything of interest has happened to you lately.”

“But how am I supposed to know what is of interest to you?”

Gayle thinks again. “You know, that’s a good question. Perhaps you can tell me if anything of interest to you has happened lately.”

I think about this. “Well, let’s see. I read Kelly Rimmer’s new novel, The Things We Cannot Say, over the weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed it.”

Gayle beams. “I read her last one and loved it. It must have been out last summer because I remember sitting outside on my garden swing with a gin and tonic while I read it.”

Before I know it, Gayle and I have discussed gin, garden swings, and her new herb garden, as well as Kelly Rimmer’s other books, and none of it has felt like a chore in the least. The fact that we are focused on our work as we talk assists with this, I believe. We are still chatting comfortably when the automatic doors slide open.

“Isn’t that your sister, Fern?”

I glance up, instantly annoyed. Rose hasn’t been back since the last time I told her it wasn’t convenient, and I’d thought she’d got the message.

“Rose,” I say, before she can speak. “I’m sorry, but I’m working.”

Rose shoots a look at Gayle. “I know. But this is important. Is there somewhere we can speak in private?”

“At home,” I suggest. “Tonight?”

She shakes her head. “Now, Fern.”

Rose and I appear to have come to something of a stalemate. I let out a long sigh.

“Go into the courtyard,” Gayle whispers. “I’ll cover for you.”

Carmel has been so lenient with me lately that I’m not sure I would need anyone to “cover” for me, but I appreciate the sentiment, so I don’t point this out. Instead, I thank Gayle and head outside to the courtyard with Rose. As we walk, Rose peppers me with inane questions about my day, the weather, if Gayle has recently changed her hair, and by the time we reach the courtyard, I’m feeling a little uneasy. Rose doesn’t typically make small talk with me. She knows I dislike chatter for chatter’s sake and the rapid fire of today makes me wonder if something is wrong.

“What is it, Rose?” I say.

Thankfully, Rose doesn’t draw it out. “It’s Mum.”

It is perhaps the very last thing I expect her to say. Rose doesn’t impart information about Mum to me, it’s the other way around. Rose hasn’t seen Mum in years.

“What … about Mum?” I ask.

I notice Rose’s face is unusually somber. “I just had a call from Sun Meadows.”

This is odd. Why would Sun Meadows call Rose?

“Why would they call you?”

Rose looks a little sheepish. “I’m Mum’s emergency contact.”

I stare at her. I have been visiting Mum every week for sixteen years and Rose is Mum’s emergency contact?

She takes a long deep breath. “It’s not good news, Fern. Mum … she died.”

I hear the words. I understand them. And yet, I feel … nothing. I become oddly aware of all the sounds around me. The birds in the nearby tree. My breath whooshing past my ears. My heart beating.

“There aren’t many details yet,” Rose says. “They will probably have to do an autopsy. They think it must have been a stroke.”

“But … she couldn’t have had a stroke. She was in good health. Better than ever.”

Rose shrugs. “Unfortunately, even healthy people have strokes sometimes.”

A tear slips from my eye and I wipe it away quickly with my shirtsleeve. Another immediately takes its place.

“I know this is hard for you, Fern. I know you loved her.”

“Can I see her?” I ask.

Rose shakes her head. “They’ve already taken her … for the autopsy.”

I stare at her. “Already?”

“Yes.”

“But … when did she die?”

“The hospital called me yesterday. Apparently, she didn’t wake up in the morning.”

“Yesterday? Mum’s been dead for a whole day and you didn’t tell me?”

Rose looks surprised. “Please don’t get upset, Fern.”

I try to fathom how I could not be upset. It is, after all, exquisitely upsetting.

“I’ll take you home,” Rose says, placing a hand on my arm. “Why don’t you wait here a minute and I’ll explain what has—”

“No,” I say, pulling my arm free and wrapping it around myself. “I’m staying here.”

But Rose is already walking back toward the door to the library. “I’m sure they’ll understand, Fern.”

“NO!” It comes out louder than I intend, but at least Rose stops walking. “I don’t want to go home. I have work to do.…”

Rose stares at me. “Really? You want to stay here?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“I am.”

Rose looks confused. I’m not sure why. The library has been my home for as long as I can remember. After a lifetime together, you’d think she would have known that. But more and more lately, I get the feeling that Rose doesn’t know me at all.

A receptionist named Jessica answers the phone. “Good morning, Sun Meadows, how may I assist you?”

“My name is Fern Castle. My mother, Nina Castle, was a patient there and I have just been informed that she has passed away. Can I speak to someone about this please?”

The receptionist tells me she’s sorry for my loss and then asks if I can hold the line. I’ve always thought that was a stupid saying—after all, what line do they want me to hold?—but today I am too upset to worry about it. After a minute, she patches me through.

“Hello?” says the voice.

“Hello,” I say. “My mother, Nina, was a patient and—”

“Fern?” she says. “It’s Onnab. I was one of your mother’s nurses. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Oh,” I say, realizing that until that very moment I’d been holding on to hope that it had been some kind of terrible mistake. “Thank you, Onnab.”

“Your mother was a very nice lady,” she says. “I always enjoyed looking after her.”

I inhale a wobbly breath. “Thank you, Onnab. I wanted to check if you knew anything about the cause of Mum’s death yet.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “It will be at least a few days before we get the results of the autopsy.”

I sink into the armchair.

“It may be of some comfort that I saw your mother the evening before she died. She seemed happy. To see your sister at last, I think, really lifted her spirits.”

I repeat the sentence in my head, making sure I had interpreted correctly. But I couldn’t have.

“Mum saw Rose?”

“Yes. At least, I think it was her. Small girl. Brunette?”

I can’t believe it. Rose visited Mum. She visited her.

I let my head fall back against the armchair. Any anger I’d felt toward Rose dissipates. What that must have meant to Mum.

“Is there anything else I can help you with, Fern?” Onnab asks after a brief silence.

“No,” I say, wiping a tear away. “You’ve already helped enough.”

I don’t know how long I sit in the secret cupboard. It might be ten minutes. It might be an hour. No one bothers me. Every time I think it’s time to leave, I don’t even get to a standing position before I change my mind and decide to stay where I am. I am starting to suspect that I might spend the night in this cupboard, when I hear a gentle knock at the door.

“Fern, there’s a gentleman here who would like to talk to you.”

It’s Carmel talking. I think about staying silent, pretending I’m not here. I can’t face anyone.

“I told him I wasn’t sure if you were here or not. It’s … Wally? I can send him away, if you don’t want to—”

“No!” I say, too quickly and too loudly. “I’ll talk to him.”

I’m not thinking clearly, obviously. I have no explanation for the fact that I’m visibly pregnant. At the same time, I simply can’t be this near and not go to him. It is a physical impossibility. For now, I put Mum’s death away in the back of my mind, to think about later. Wally and Mum all together is simply too much for me.

I practically run to the reception area. Carmel is at my heels. As Wally comes into view—wearing his suit again—I am so overcome that I can’t even manage a smile.

Neither can he. His eyes are fixed on my belly. “So it’s true,” he says. “You’re pregnant.”

“How did you know?”

“Rose told me.”

“What?”I decide I must have misheard. “Rose told you I was pregnant?”

He nods.

“But when did you see Rose?”

Wally’s face gets a funny look to it then, like he is sucking the inside of his cheeks. I’m not sure if he’s confused or upset or even … angry. “Rose has visited me quite a few times over these past few months, Fern.”

Now I’m certain I’ve misheard.

“She phoned me several months ago—she wanted to see me to talk about you, she said. She came to my office.”

It doesn’t make sense. Rose has spent these past few months telling me not to contact Wally. She couldn’t have contacted Wally herself.

“She’s been back several times since,” he says.

“To talk about me? Why?”

“Good question, since she’s barely mentioned you—not that first day or any other time.”

I struggle to take it in. “Well … what did she want then?”

He shrugs. “First, she wanted to have coffee. Then she suggested lunch. Each time I agreed because I wanted to know how you were doing. But she never told me much about you, other than that you were happy with your new boyfriend. Then … yesterday, she told me you were pregnant.”

I don’t understand. Why would Rose say that after making me promise I wouldn’t tell him?

“She said she’s been on the fence about whether to say anything, because you’d made her swear to keep it a secret. But now that you’re in financial trouble, she said she had to reach out.”

I open my eyes. Financial trouble?

My head is spinning. Wally watches me closely, his eyes on my face, as if he’d expected my surprise. But I still don’t understand. It feels like everyone is in on a secret, except me.

“Wally, I’m not in financial trouble.”

“Rose said you’d say that. She said you’re too proud to admit it.”

“Well, I’m not.”

He takes a few deep breaths. “How far along are you?”

“Nearly eight months.” It’s a miracle that I’m able to fudge the date, given the amount of noise in my head. Wally is here, standing right in front of me. It feels like a dream.

He sneaks a look at me. “And … you and … the new guy … are okay?”

I almost say, “What new guy?” Then I remember. He’s talking about the father. The fictional father of my baby.

I manage a nod. But I’m thinking of that phone conversation Rose and I had, after she found out Wally had founded Shout! I remember the excitement in her voice. A hundred million dollars, she’d said.

“I’m sorry.” Wally reaches out and touches my shoulder. “I’ve upset you.”

“I’m just confused. I don’t know why Rose came to you.”

“She came to me,” he says, “because she knows I care about you. She knows that I’d give you the money in a heartbeat if you needed it.” Wally clears his throat. “And she used that information to try to get money for herself, Fern, not for you.”

I shake my head. “No. That can’t be right.”

“Look, Fern, I know you’ve met someone else. But Rose is right, I do still care about you. And as someone who cares about you, I feel a responsibility to tell you that I think something is very wrong with your sister. Very, very wrong.”

I shake my head. I don’t want to believe it, but deep down I have a horrible feeling that he is right.

I think something is very wrong with your sister.

An hour after Wally leaves the library, I’m still ruminating on that. Is he right? And if he is, why am I the last to know about it? Is it one of those things I don’t notice? Like people communicating with their facial expressions? Is it possible that, because of the way I see things, I’ve been missing an entire side of Rose? I think, suddenly, of Mum. She’d always worried so much about Rose. Was that because something was wrong with her?

I slide my phone out of my pocket and stare at it a moment, thinking. After hearing about Rose contacting Wally—asking him for money—I’m questioning everything. Finally, I redial the number for Sun Meadows. The same receptionist answers and I ask to speak to Onnab.

“Hello again, Fern,” Onnab says. “Is there something else I can help you with?”

“Yes. I’d like to know who the last person was to see Mum alive.”

A pause. “Well, let’s see … it would have been whichever nurse was on night duty. I can check the schedule. She would have checked on everyone during night rounds.”

“Would that have been before or after Rose visited Mum?”

“Hmm,” she says. “Actually, I’m not sure.”

“Rose hadn’t seen Mum for a long time. It was her first visit in ten years,” I say suddenly. I’m not sure why. Perhaps I want assurance that this, combined with Mum’s unexpected death, doesn’t mean anything.

Onnab is quiet for a long time but I can hear her breathing, so I know she’s still there. “Fern, as far as I know, the death isn’t being treated as suspicious. Is there any reason you think it should be?”

I repeat the question in my head.

“Fern?” she says again.

I want to respond, as she has asked a question. It’s just that I don’t know the answer.

The Braxton-Hicks kick in around 2:00 P.M. I time them on a notepad as I go about my business at the library. Some people get all panicky about Braxton-Hicks, but I’ve read the books, I know they are only real when contractions are increasing in frequency and intensity. I get some relief from my thoughts and my pains by getting lost in my work—helping an elderly man find a selection of reading material about the Titanic to prepare for a talk he is giving at his Rotary Club. (“No romances,” he’d said, pointing a finger at me accusingly. “Nothing with Leo DiCaprio or people getting steamy as the ship begins to sink.”) I provide toiletries to a young homeless woman (and even give her my own sandwich for lunch, as after my interaction with Wally I’m not feeling especially hungry). Then I go to tidy the children’s section, which is looking a bit worse for wear after the toddler drawing class that morning.

By 3:30 P.M., my Braxton-Hicks are getting more consistent in timing—around ten minutes apart for almost an hour. And while the pain is not debilitating, I’m starting to find it difficult to concentrate on my work.…

“Are you all right, Fern?” Carmel says when she finds me in the archive area, breathing quietly through a cramp.

“Fine,” I say. “I’m fine.”

She watches me closely. “Why don’t you go home early today? You look a little tired.”

I am taken aback at the suggestion. I’ve only taken two sick days in my entire working career and have only left early once for an emergency dental appointment. But with Carmel offering, and after the day I’ve had, I find myself nodding. “All right,” I say. “Thanks, Carmel.”

“Would you like me to order a taxi to take you home?” Carmel says.

“A taxi would be great,” I tell Carmel. I don’t tell her that I’m not going home.

By the time I arrive at the hospital, my contractions are four minutes apart.

Inside, everything is orderly and signposted, and I find the maternity ward promptly and report my arrival at the desk. The nurses are impressed with the documentation I provide, detailing the steady increase in the frequency of my contractions over the past few hours. Upon seeing me double over to breathe through a contraction, they unanimously agree that I should be taken straight through to the delivery room.

A nurse with gray hair and a navy-blue cardigan is the one to take me through. I follow her into a bustling hive of activity—people in scrubs and masks, requesting assistance or giving it; the phone ringing; people chatting. From an adjacent room, I hear a low moan reminiscent of a cow’s. At the same time a nurse walks by, carrying an icy pole that smells like grapes and bubblegum. I pause as a particularly strong contraction takes hold. My nurse pauses with me, administers a firm rub to my lower back, and tells me, “You’re doing great, love.”

When it has passed, I follow her into a bright room—delivery room 4. A gown lies on the vinyl bed. In one corner, a tray of instruments sits beside a medical-looking crib, complete with overhead warmer.

“Your baby will be in there soon,” the nurse says, flicking a switch. The crib lights up, emitting a low hum that travels through me like a mild electrical current. From somewhere outside the room, I hear someone whimper. It makes me jump.

“Pop that on, love,” the nurse says, gesturing to the gown. “Everything off underneath, including bra and undies, then take a seat on the bed, and the doctor will soon be in to examine you. Is someone on their way to be with you?”

“What? Oh … um, no.”

The nurse is headed for the door to give me some privacy, but then she pauses. “Oh. Is there someone I can call for you?”

I shake my head. But suddenly I’m not so sure. The lights. The sounds. The strange people.

“Oh, love,” she says kindly. “Labor can be hard work—you’ll want someone here to support you. A friendly face. Someone you trust.”

Someone I trust.

How complicated that statement has become. What if the person I trust most in the world is entirely untrustworthy? I want to ask. And then, another thought occurs to me: And what if she is the one person I can’t get through this thing without?

“Fine,” I say finally. “There is someone.”

“Why didn’t you call me earlier?” Rose snaps as she bustles in. “We had a plan, remember?”

“Enough of that,” Beverly says firmly, glancing up from her notes. “I don’t want anyone upsetting our mother-to-be.”

I glance at Rose. Rose has never taken well to people ticking her off. So I’m surprised when she gives Beverly a tight smile, removes her handbag, and places it on the window ledge. “You’re right,” she says. “I’m sorry. Are you all right?”

This is one for the books. I can’t remember Rose ever saying sorry to me … ever.

“I’m fine,” I say, before realizing this is far from the truth. My body is tensed up, my arms are wrapped around myself, and I’m rocking gently.

Rose looks at me knowingly. “Busy in here, right?” she says softly. “It’s all right. I’ll take care of everything.”

To her credit, take care of things she does. In a matter of minutes, Rose has dimmed the lights, closed the door, opened the window, and explained to every nurse that I don’t like people crowding me. Then she helps me down off the bed, explaining that I need to move around. Within a few minutes, I can breathe again.

That’s the funny thing. Whatever else Rose has done, I realize, she is the only person on earth who can do this for me.

I am starting to warm to Beverly. I’m even becoming fond of her saying “love.”

While she’s checking me, she says casually, “Your sister tells me you are being a surrogate for her? What an amazing gift.”

I manage a nod.

“I would have loved to have a child. They didn’t use surrogates in my day, though. Even if they did, I only had a brother. I had friends, but it really seems like a sister thing, being a surrogate. I imagine, being twins, the bond is even more unique. If you get along, that is.” She laughs.

Beverly doesn’t seem to be expecting an answer, and I am glad. If she had, I might have told her the truth. That people without sisters think it’s all sunshine and lollipops or all blood and guts. But actually it’s always both. Sunshine and guts. Lollipops and blood. Good and bad. The bad is as essential to the relationship as the good.

Maybe the bad is even more important, because that’s what ties you together.

At some point I am offered pain relief, which I decline. For this, I am lauded by Rose and the nurses and told I am strong, when, in fact, I have refused it because I simply cannot bear the idea of anyone else touching me, even to administer pain relief. For now, I’ll take the physical pain over the mental. But I am not strong. I think I might die. If not from the pain, then from the sensory overload. It comes at me from every angle. I am certain I would die, if not for Rose. She anticipates my needs—a cold drink, ice chips, space—and takes care of them quietly and without fuss. She never touches me without asking, and questions those who insist on touching me, confirming that it is absolutely necessary. She talks to the nurses and then reports back to me periodically: “It won’t be long,” “Things are going well,” and, finally, “The baby will be born within the hour.”

Twenty minutes later, when my water breaks, the room fills with people and the lights are turned up. It’s too loud. Too bright. I can’t breathe.

“You’re ten centimeters,” Beverly says. “It’s time to push.”

I shake my head. I can’t. I need to get out of here. I try to stand but faces and hands rush in, trying to stop me. It makes it worse.

Then I hear Rose. “Just give her some space.”

They step back slightly, but it’s not enough. I’m too hot. It’s too much.

“Fern, you can do this,” Rose says. “You have to do this. For the baby.”

I shake my head again. Rose looks around at the people crowding around me. I see the powerlessness on her face. She can’t make these people go away. They are here to deliver the baby. They won’t go anywhere.

She looks back at me. Her eyes are filled with tears. “Close your eyes. Imagine you are somewhere safe. The library. You have all the space you need. And you are with someone that you trust.”

I do as she says. And it’s Wally’s face that I picture as I give birth to our daughter.