We’re moving here in December,” said Jane. “We live in Newtown at the moment, but I decided it might be nice to live near the beach for a while. It was just on a whim, I guess.”
The phrase “on a whim” came to her out of nowhere, and both pleased and embarrassed her.
She tried to make it a whimsical story, as if she were indeed a whimsical girl. She told Madeline that one day a few months back she’d taken Ziggy for a trip to the beach, seen the rental sign outside a block of apartments and thought, Why not live near the beach?
It wasn’t a lie, after all. Not exactly.
A day at the beach, she’d kept telling herself, over and over, as she drove down that long swooping road, as if someone were listening in on her thoughts, questioning her motives.
Pirriwee Beach was one of the top ten most
