It explained a lot. The way Gabe had got his job with Max. The fact that he managed to keep his job despite his ups and downs. It also made me realise what Max had been going to say when he told us that Baz was never going to hurt the girls. Of course he wasn’t. They were Max’s flesh and blood.
Asha and Freya were named sole beneficiaries of Max’s estate, with the money to be held in trust until they turn twenty-one, at which time they will become wealthier than any person has a right to be. They don’t know this yet, and I have no intention of divulging it anytime soon. I plan to give them the most normal childhood I can. After the turbulence of their first four years, it feels like the least I can do. If Gabe is upset to have been denied an inheritance, he’s shown no sign of it – and I do know that Gabe had never been particularly motivated by money. And, after what Max sacrificed for him on the cliff, he only speaks about his uncle with gratitude. Which adds to my belief that, in dying, Max took the fall for something else that wasn’t entirely his fault.
‘Ah, here’s Nana,’ I say, as I spot Mum walking towards us.
Gabe and I haven’t formalised our custody arrangement, but I’ve made it clear he is not to spend time with the girls unsupervised. I want Gabe to be part of their lives, but that doesn’t mean I trust him. Sometimes it is Mum or Dad who accompanies the girls. Sometimes it is a playdate with a friend and their parent in the park. Sometimes it is me. So far, Gabe hasn’t objected. He understands he’s got off lightly. Besides, for all of his troubles, he loves his daughters. He’ll take any access to them that he can get.
‘Nana!’ Asha cries, launching herself at Mum.
‘I’ll have them back to yours by five,’ Gabe says to me.
I wave until they disappear around the corner （once, apparently, Asha turned around to give me one last wave and I’d already left, and I won’t ever hear the end of that）。
Once they are gone, I leave too, wrestling with that strange, untethered feeling I always get when I walk away from my girls. It’s temporary, I know this, usually lasting only until I walk through my front door and become my alter ego, the person I get to be when I’m without them now.
Sometimes, I hang out at The Pantry with Dev, drinking coffee and chatting. We’ve been spending more and more time together, and while it’s nothing romantic yet, I’ve come to enjoy his company in a way I hadn’t expected to. A few weeks ago, he made me a three-course meal at The Pantry after it closed, and it was one of the nicest evenings I can remember in a long time.
Occasionally I will FaceTime Kat and Mei to see my gorgeous nephew, Ollie. Kat and Mei moved back to the city just before Ollie was born. Mei had more work opportunities in Melbourne, and Kat wanted to support her. Before they left, Kat told me that it felt strange to be moving away from me, but for the first time she knew I would be okay. Perhaps for the first time, I knew that too.
We moved out of the cliff house a few months ago. I couldn’t live there anymore after everything that happened. I bought a cottage a few streets back from the beach and Gabe bought his own cottage around the corner. There is a lot of coming and going between our two houses. Forgotten toys being brought back and forth. Once, when the girls wanted to ride their scooters to Daddy’s without Mummy （there were no roads to cross）， we even stood outside our houses on our phones so we could confirm that there were always eyes on them.
In short, Gabe is still a part of our lives. But he’s not my whole life. He’s not me. Not anymore.
I have reached my house. My cottage is small, just two bedrooms, a living room, a galley kitchen and a sunroom, but it is quaint and charming and full of character. I’d planned to spend the afternoon reading a book and drinking coffee, but suddenly I have a better idea.
I hire a board from the surf club and spend the afternoon falling off it. Turns out I don’t need someone holding my board and pushing me onto the wave – I can do it myself. Several times, as I ride the wave, I have that glorious, blissful feeling . . . like I’m flying. It’s even better than the feeling I had the day Gabe took me surfing. Because it taught me that Gabriel Gerard isn’t the only one who can make magic. I can make magic too.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
You know you’re onto a good thing when you tell people your new book idea and they enthusiastically cheer, ‘Yesssss. I’d read that.’
That was the response I got when I announced that I’d decided to write a book about marriage and murder. It was during the protracted 262-day Melbourne lockdown, and my girlfriends and I had started a WhatsApp group to chronicle our daily marital misgivings – Christian’s urgent need to mow the lawn every time there was homeschooling to be done, Sam’s repeated failure to put his undies in the laundry basket instead of beside it, the whisper of the air entering Stew’s lungs as he had the audacity to breathe. Suffice to say that by the time I floated the book idea, there was no dearth of suggestions of how the murder might take place*.
But while The Soulmate started out as an exploration of how we might like to murder our husbands, it quickly morphed into something else. An exploration of the bad and good sides of marriage. What we bring to it. What it brings out in us. I like to think of it as a murderous love story. Unconventional, of course, but that’s what I do.
As always, I owe a debt of gratitude to the people behind the scenes. Let’s start with my beloved editor and publisher, Jen Enderlin, whose belief in me boggles my mind on a daily basis, and the team at St Martin’s – Katie Bassel, Erica Martirano, Brant Janeway, Olga Grlic, Kim Ludlam and Christina Lopez, who, after so many books together, I think I can call my friends. Also to Pan Macmillan Australia, specifically Alex Lloyd, to whom this book is dedicated as thanks for always incorporating my down-to-the-wire changes （and, let’s face it, bribery for always incorporating my FUTURE down-to-the-wire changes!）， and the wonderful Clare Keighery for managing my publicity. And enormous thanks to my literary agent, Rob Weisbach, who always has my back （and also my front and my sides）。
To my sensitivity readers who helped me form a credible understanding of bipolar and the eroding effects it can have on relationships, this book is infinitely better because of you.
To Amy Lovat, my assistant and soon-to-be fellow author – as sad as I am that you are far too talented to be my assistant forever – I can’t wait to watch you fly.
To my writing gang – Jane Cockram, Kirsty Manning, Lisa Ireland and Kelly Rimmer – one day I’ll write a book about you guys and I legitimately can’t decide who will get murdered. Possibly the man in Big W who came up to our signing table, asked if we were famous and then decided not to buy a book. That poor bugger is going to have a painful literary death.
To Kerryn Mayne, my friend, another soon-to-be author and also police detective, who constantly reminds me that not everything that happens in Line of Duty is real. I respectfully disagree about Line of Duty, and if you keep telling me Steve Arnott isn’t real, we may have a problem on our hands. Still, thank you for everything.
To my friends and family, who provide me with endless book fodder. Keep being the gloriously dysfunctional humans you are. And to my readers, who have embraced my very peculiar brand – funny books about family and murder – because of you, I get to keep writing my very peculiar books. For that, I am forever in your debt.