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and for all.’
    ‘Sounds reasonable to me,’ smiled Poppy. She sipped her tea for a minute. ‘There are no twins in Stuart’s family, you know. At least, not as far as we can make out.’
    ‘You mean, so it must come from your side?’
    Poppy nodded. ‘Yeah. Weird, eh? I never thought about it, until they told us there were two in there, and that it tends to run in families.’ She frowned. ‘They were nice and tactful, and everything. But it just came up naturally while we were all chatting, and it felt horrible, the fact that I didn’t know. That I’ll probably never know. I might even have a twin out there, somewhere. So yes, I know exactly where you’re coming from.’
    There was a moment’s silence.
    ‘And I suppose it’s a kind of test,’ said Carys, at last.
    ‘Ah,’ said Poppy, as if she had been waiting for this. ‘Joe.’
    ‘Yes.’ Carys sighed. ‘We’ve been together so long, and I still really love him. But he’s always had this idea he can sweet-talk me into doing what he wants to do. I thought after that time we nearly split up he’d changed. He seemed so shocked that I might actually leave, and so hurt. I thought he’d understood that I can’t always be the one that compromises, that I have my dreams, too. He’s been so understanding since then about me giving up a respectable career and going back to college, and the stuff about moving to Devon and setting up a business and starting a family. He’s been fine with the practical things. It’s just …’ She let the sentence trail away. She had always been able to say things to Poppy she could never say to anyone else. Not even Joe. But she couldn’t say this. Not even in front of Poppy, who’d seen more of the nastier side of life before she was five than most people would see in a lifetime.
    Poppy cleared her throat. ‘Mmm,’ she said, with un-Poppy -like vagueness. ‘That’s the thing about having kids.’ She raised her head as the baby monitor on the sideboard crackled into life in agreement. Carys found herself holding her breath, too. There was a whimper, followed by the beginnings of a cry, which faded almost immediately away. Poppy began demolishing her piece of carrot cake with the urgency of an explorer who might be called upon to restart the trek at any moment. ‘They change things, however much you think they won’t. And once you’ve got them, there’s no going back. Stuart adores the girls, and he’s amazing. But I do have friends who feel abandoned, because their husbands still have their careers and their friends, and their lives have scarcely changed at all.’
    ‘I’ve thought about that,’ said Carys, the wobble back in her stomach. ‘I can’t help feeling that Joe still thinks that if he’s nice to me and cooks me meals he can get me to give up this idea of looking after Mam. That I’m not really serious and he can talk me round. And if he’s like this about a couple of months looking after my mother…’ She met Poppy’s eyes. ‘I really thought he wanted a different kind of life, too. You can’t force someone to change. Not without fighting them all the time. And that’s not the way –’
    The whimper was back. More insistent, this time. ‘They’ll be awake soon,’ said Poppy. ‘Once one wakes up, they soon wake up the other. Two screaming babies for the price of one. Yummy.’
    Carys laughed. Her friend might talk tough, but you only had to see Poppy with the twins to see that she adored them, and would fight to the death before anyone could harm them.
    ‘It’s fine, I’ll go,’ came a masculine voice, as the proud father himself – bleary-eyed and slightly dishevelled around the edges – returned from hanging out the morning’s washing on the line in the garden, just in time to hear the whimper swell to a cough, followed by a splutter, which merged into a definite wail. ‘Nice cake, Cari,’ he added, with a grin, cutting himself a slice with a practiced action, followed by