FictionI’d missed her fiftieth birthday party the year before due to the usual restrictions of time and money. But as I stood at the window scrubbing vegetables, I wondered what had been so important that I hadn’t been able to make an exception for someone to whom a year could be a lifetime. Under-eights soccer game? Kids’ sleepover? But my partner could have done that on their own, couldn’t they?

FictionSelected for Best Australian Stories 2006SHE WAS FIFTY-NINE, rich, divorced for a year, and out alone on a Saturday night. She told the taxi driver to head for the Cross; she wanted to do something different, and she decided...