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Alexandra unwound her cashmere scarf as she strode into the discreet suburban wine bar Kate had nominated. She felt like she’d stepped into the middle of Milan. Outside it looked like an Edwardian terrace, but inside was all curved hardwood, black-and-white mosaic floor tiles, dim lights and elegant brass fittings.

‘There you are,’ said Kate as she wrapped Alexandra in a bear hug then stepped back to give her friend the once-over. She wolf-whistled. ‘Look at you. How is it possible you get more glam each time I see you? If I hadn’t known you since you insisted on pinafores, long white socks and sandals, I’d hate you. Seriously.’ Kate took a swig of her white wine and laughed. Her shoulder-length blonde hair needed a trim and, though her broad face was tanned, she had dark rings under her eyes.

‘It’s great to see you too, Kip.’

‘I am so sorry about missing your Oma’s gathering. We had a haemorrhage right on changeover so I didn’t feel I could walk out on the team.’ Kate was a midwife at one of the biggest maternity hospitals in Melbourne. With three kids under five and a builder for a husband, it was a miracle she managed a night off.

Alexandra waved it away with her hand. ‘How are my godchildren? I’m looking forward to seeing them on Sunday.’

‘Monsters! Appalling, the lot of them. They tear the house apart from five every morning. I’m pretty much parked out the front of the childcare centre before it even opens at seven-thirty, I’m so desperate to get to work for a rest!’ Kate picked up her glass, slugged on her wine. ‘Anyway, they’re all yours on Sunday. I’ll just lock you in the basement with a bottle of chardonnay for two hours until Brad has burned the butterflied lamb.’ Another sip. ‘Enough about me. Nothing’s changed. Kids, work, renovations. Repeat.’

‘How’s Brad?’

‘Busy! I’m still cooking on the camp stove four months later—since you were here last.’

Alexandra rolled her eyes in sympathy.

‘I’m hoping he can get a break between jobs so the kitchen can at least go in! He didn’t even do the cupboards. I got sick of waiting and got the lot from IKEA.’ Her tone was mock scolding, but at the mention of Brad, Kate’s eyes sparkled and her face softened.

Alexandra chuckled as she signalled to the barman to bring her a glass of whatever Kate was having. She took a handful of spiced almonds from the bowl in front of them. What exactly did true love feel like? she wondered. Sure, Kate looked exhausted and there was a stain on the cuff of her white shirt, but the woman sitting in front of Alexandra was unmistakably happy. She knew Kate wouldn’t swap her chaotic life for anything.

Kate hopped off her stool and hugged Alexandra, who was blinking back tears.

‘I’m so, so sorry about Wilhelm. He was a good man. A great father to you.’

‘Yes, he was,’ said Alexandra, wiping her eyes with a tissue she’d pulled from her sleeve.

‘And how’s Romy? I’ll call in and see her on my next day off.’

‘Thanks,’ said Alexandra, flashing her a grateful smile. ‘Romy’s amazing. Devastated. But noodling on, caring for everyone else as usual. Nina’s having a few issues with her legs so she’s over there tonight and Romy is doing some massage and acupuncture.’

‘Same old Romy,’ said Kate with affection. ‘Will she stay in the house, do you think?’

‘I’m not sure. She wants to, and she’s as fit as a fiddle. She’s more mobile than half the people who have come by the house, most of whom are young enough to be her children.’ Alexandra shook her head. ‘But I’m not sure about this Shanghai posting now. Romy insists I still go, she doesn’t want me to put my life on hold. Yet I can’t help feeling I should probably come home.’

‘Romy’s right, of course,’ said Kate. ‘But I know what you mean about Shanghai. At least it’s closer than England. Anyway, you’re here for a few more weeks. Just enjoy your time with her and then see how she feels. The last thing Romy would want is to make you feel guilty or for you to stay here out of a sense of duty.’

Alexandra tucked her tissue back up her sleeve. ‘That’s good advice. Hey, I’ve started sorting out my old room. I found this.’ She reached into her bag and pulled out a crinkled photo of two girls in whites standing at the edge of a tennis court, each with an arm draped around the other’s shoulders. Messy hair was falling out of their ponytails and they were hoisting a gold cup between them.

‘The state doubles final, right?’

‘Yep. I found the trophy too. Reckon it’s time I gave it to you. Remember we said we’d share it? I never gave you a turn.’

‘Plenty of time,’ said Kate, giggling. ‘What’s the rush?’

It felt good to laugh, Alexandra thought. ‘Might be time for a rematch. You up for it?’

‘Just name the date, babe. A bash of the tennis ball would be great—it’s been too long between games. I remember one of the girls on the opposition was a real pill.’

‘Nasty. You smashed her, though,’ Alexandra recalled. Kate had always looked after her.

‘What did she call you? Chink?’

‘I’ve heard worse.’

Kate reached over and grabbed Alexandra’s hand. ‘Bugger ’em!’

Alexandra smiled. Her childhood friend was as constant as the waves.

‘So. Hugo.’

And there it was. The topic she’d been avoiding. Alexandra couldn’t pretend, not with her oldest friend. Her bottom lip trembled and Kate shifted her stool across so she could drape her arm around Alexandra.

‘Yes, quite,’ said Alexandra. When had she started sounding so British?

‘I’m so sorry, Al. What a tool.’

‘Mmm,’ agreed Alexandra as she nibbled on another almond. ‘Turns out the young soon-to-be Lord Crossington was a walking cliché.’ She bit the nut in two with force. ‘I mean, his secretary? C’mon.’ She’d never forget the triumphant look on Victoria’s face when Alexandra had burst into Hugo’s office late on a Thursday night on her way to the National Theatre. She’d had champagne downstairs with Cath and Rashida, her girlfriends on the trading desk, before realising she’d forgotten their tickets. So back upstairs to their office she went…

Hugo was one of the top commodity traders. He’d recruited her straight from university. In a multitude of ways. She’d opened the door to see him sitting on the desk with Victoria’s endless legs wrapped around his waist. They weren’t dancing.

‘So? Good riddance!’ Kate declared. ‘The guy was a tosser anyway.’

‘Now you tell me.’ Alexandra raised her eyebrows. ‘I was about to marry the guy.’ Her bones ached with a grief she was too afraid to admit. She gulped it down with her wine. ‘I just didn’t see it coming.’ But had she really loved him?

‘Oh, Al.’ Kate leaned over and hugged her and Alexandra blinked the tears away.

Witnessing the way her grandmother had selflessly tended to her Opa had reminded her of the unbreakable bond her grandparents shared. They would never have deceived each other like that. Her grandmother’s moral compass was as strong as the meridians circling the globe.

But lately Alexandra had begun to wonder if she wasn’t as big a cheat as Hugo. Miners and governments in third-world countries benefited from her quick-fire speculation dollars. Everyone made a profit. But what was the real cost? She’d always told herself that her job was to neutralise risk, but with the global markets being so jittery, margins were tightening. Alexandra made sure companies and governments still operated inside the rules, but perhaps the benefits were not flowing to the wider population as she’d projected when she was a newly minted mathematician.

Kate shot her a sympathetic look. ‘All that I rowed at Henley. I ski in Zermatt. I went to Oxford. Blah, blah, blah.’ Kate mimed sticking a finger in her mouth.

‘Hey, I went to Oxford.’

‘You were on a scholarship, freak. That’s different.’

Was it? She got the university medal in mathematics. Princeton, MIT and Caltech all offered her a postgrad place. Alexandra could have chosen any university in the world, so why did she choose the one her mother went to? It was as if by following in her mother’s footsteps—schools, majors, university—she had a template for how to become an adult. At Oxford Sophia had met Joseph, an Australian PhD physics student with a lopsided smile and appalling taste in towelling tracksuits, and together they’d come home to Melbourne to teach at Melbourne University. Then along came Alexandra and life was perfect. Until—

Alexandra allowed her hand to travel to the tote bag she’d discreetly hung on a hook under the bar. She stroked the soft Italian leather. Inside, swaddled in a French linen tea towel, was her mother’s childhood diary. She’d found it in a box of her mother’s old schoolbooks and university folders stored under her bed, tucked away in the differential equations folder with a peeling, faded sticker of the Rolling Stones on the front. Oma had said many times over the years that it hurt too much to look at Sophia’s scrawled handwriting and lecture notes—all that youthful energy on the page needled her heart. So she had left the boxes untouched for Alexandra to do with as she wished. She was a mathematician herself, after all.

As Kate ordered two fresh glasses of wine and a charcuterie board, Alexandra took the diary from her bag and unwrapped it carefully before passing it over.

‘Look what I found when I was sorting through some of Mum’s old stuff today.’

Kate took the diary and opened it to the first entry, before hesitating and asking, ‘Are you sure you want me to read this?’

Alexandra nodded. ‘You have to! Please?’

15 July 1959

Mutti and Papa have given me this diary for my birthday, but I can’t imagine I’ll be writing much. I’m 14 in two days, too old for baby secrets and ‘what I did today’ stories.

Here’s some basic information:

Height: 160 cm (same as my mother but I plan to grow taller).

Hair colour: Black. Really black.

Eyes: Brown.

School: St Margaret’s Ladies College. I’m on a scholarship.

Parents: Romy and Wilhelm Cohen.

Favourite subjects: Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and German (because I can already speak it—that’s what we speak at home).

Worst subject: Music (even though Mutti says I’m a really good singer, I don’t believe her. I sounded like a pigeon in my solo at the last school recital. NEVER AGAIN!!!)

Best friend: Tie between Jane Piper and Audrey Frisk.

Worst enemy: Fiona Hamilton (she’s so dumb, anyway I’m not in any classes with her).

Favourite foods: Apple strudel. Mangoes. Chocolate.

Hobbies: Bike riding, athletics, callisthenics.

Other significant fact: I’m adopted from China (which explains why I look so different to everyone at my school). Mutti says it doesn’t matter because I’m smarter than all of them put together. But the other day when Audrey and I rode our bikes down along the foreshore in our coats and beanies to fetch some cocoa for hot chocolates, she said her mother used to ride along the same track as a child. It was as if her mother had carved a path for her along the edge of the city.

Mutti is my mother, but somewhere in China I have another mother and father. We never talk about it. There’s lots of adopted children like me in Australia (even if I’ve never seen any others). I know I’m lucky and I should be thankful. I am.

But lately, I’ve been wondering if my new body shape, if my eyes, if my maths, come from my real mother and father. Wherever they are. I’m too scared to ask Mutti and Papa about why I was adopted. What if my real parents are horrible? Or dead? But mostly I wonder: did they love me?

Because if they did, then why did they give me away?

Kate scanned the diary entry and chuckled as she said, ‘It sounds like this could be you at the same age.’

‘You think?’ asked Alexandra, pleased.

‘Explains where your big maths brain comes from, doesn’t it?’

‘Well, my dad was a professor too, remember!’

‘Of course,’ said Kate as she turned the page.

The waiter placed the platter on the bar and Alexandra helped herself to a slice of prosciutto.

Kate started flipping through the diary. ‘I don’t understand—why’s there only one entry? Other than that it’s just maths stuff.’

‘I bet I know—remember when we had to keep a diary for a whole term in year eight English? Such a pain!’

‘Way too many words for you,’ Kate agreed, before continuing, ‘But what she said, Alex, about being adopted, wondering about her parents…I mean, don’t you ever wonder about your other family?’

Her blue eyes were wide and sympathetic and not for the first time Alexandra thought that this love, this bond with someone who knows what to say when you can’t speak, was real love. Kate was the sister she’d never had.

‘Have you shown this to Romy?’

Alexandra shook her head. ‘I can’t. She’s being strong, but she’s so frail. She’s just lost the love of her life. They were together for seventy years. Can you imagine?’

Kate looked dreamy. ‘Only sixty to go with the builder. Hopefully I’ll have a kitchen by then.’

‘You’ll have ten!’

‘I’m happy to start with one. But seriously, why don’t you ask her? You guys have always been close.’

‘That’s the problem. It feels like a betrayal. I get why my mum didn’t talk about it with Oma; in those days you didn’t really talk about that stuff. And her parents had been through the war. Leave the past in the past. But now, when Oma is grieving…It just seems cruel to add to her grief.’

‘Fair enough. So what are you going to do—just leave it? It’s a pretty big thing to ignore, Al.’

‘I’ve tried asking the family lawyer, but he’s got no information. Seemed to think any search would be fruitless given the paper trails lost during the war.’ Alexandra closed her eyes for a second before she opened them and started to speak. ‘It’s been thirty-five years. Another few months won’t hurt. Maybe I’ll do it when Oma’s just a bit stronger. When the grief—’ She slumped back in her chair, as empty as her wineglass.

Kate leaned over the bar and ordered two more glasses, before adding, ‘I should’ve ordered the bottle.’

‘Next time.’

Alexandra decided to keep the old black and white photos she’d found tucked inside the back cover of the diary to herself.

‘So you’re just going to slip this diary back under your bed and pretend you never found it until your next visit?’

‘Maybe.’ Alexandra picked up the diary and flipped to where the pages of notes and formulas started. ‘But see this?’ She tapped a page. ‘These notes are dated 1980. Mum would have been pregnant with me.’ Kate leaned over and had a closer look at a page filled with numbers scrawled in fierce black biro.

‘That’s some pretty mean formulas and notes. Like PhD stuff.’

‘Exactly. It could be she rediscovered the diary when she was home for a visit but then got sidetracked when she was doing some workings for her methodology.’

‘Happens to the best of us,’ Kate said dryly as she rolled up a piece of salami and popped it in her mouth.

‘Hmm.’ Alexandra smiled as she closed the diary.

What she didn’t mention was that her mother’s dissertation was on mathematical genetics. Perhaps, among these random workings, was some hint or clue as to exactly what Sophia was looking for. These threads of numbers connected her far more closely to her mother than the awkward diary entry hastily scratched across two pages.

Alexandra had always found mathematical theory and facts far better tools than emotional ones for providing answers. She was going to look for an agency in China that could provide her with facts. This time, she’d tuck her unreliable heart away and lead with her head.