Free Almost Perfect by Dianne Blacklock

mother’s maiden name, however, when the lecturers began to twig she was the daughter of the renowned Malcolm Reading.
    Nick deferred his own studies for a year. He wanted to make sure Zan got off to a good start at uni and that Georgie finished school without further disruption. He stepped into the role of surrogate father with ease and had never really stepped out again, nor had he returned to uni. He was probably not built for it, he claimed some years later, shrugging it off. He didn’t have the discipline; he was more artisan than architect, craftsman than draftsman.
    Besides, as executor of the estate and guardian of his sisters he had more important things to attend to. They had not been left wanting, but obviously their parents had planned to be around for a long time. There was substantial equity in the family home, but a substantial mortgage along with it, and now no income to service it. It would not have made good financial sense to sink the life insurance pay-out into the house. Fortunately their Uncle Jon was an invaluable help to him at the time. Although he lived in Singapore, he travelled back and forth six times in that first year or so. He’d wanted to take them all back with him at first, as their father’s brother and closest next of kin. They had never known theirmother’s family. Gillian had run away from home at fifteen and refused to have any contact, despite her husband’s gentle urging. They didn’t even know if she was alive, he’d pointed out. They wouldn’t care either way, Gillian had steadfastly maintained.
    Nick politely but firmly declined his uncle’s offer – he felt that the family should be spared any further upheaval, and Jon reluctantly agreed. It was also decided they remain in the house for the meantime, again, for the sake of stability. They needed space to grieve and time to heal. Jon helped Nick invest the money to defray their expenses, and when a year had passed they put the family home on the market.
    Nick wanted the girls to invest their share of the proceeds back into real estate and Zan needed no encouragement. She promptly bought a dingy apartment in a rundown block in the most decrepit quarter of Woolloomooloo, much to Nick’s alarm. All the more when she insisted on moving in straight away. He had hoped to keep the family together for a little longer, but Zan was going on twenty and while she loved her brother and sister, she was also doggedly independent.
    Georgie had needed a little more encouragement and guidance to spend her money wisely. Nick finally persuaded her to buy a drab but solid investment flat in Dee Why while she lived with him in the fixer-upper he had found a couple of suburbs away in Harbord. Louise was virtually living there too and when she and Nick decided to marry, Georgie gave notice to her tenants and took up residence in herown flat. Nick had felt torn at the time. Of course he and Louise needed their own space, but he hated that Georgie was on her own. He worried about her, worried that he’d miss something, that he wouldn’t notice the signs. But she worked with Louise all day and spent a lot of time with them besides, so he had to trust that would be enough. He just wanted to see her settled with someone, but she hadn’t had much luck in that department. He didn’t know why, but what often started off hopefully seemed to go nowhere pretty fast. Nick was well aware there were some dickheads around, but sometimes he had a disquieting feeling that Georgie was hard to please, that she was waiting for someone she was never going to find.
    Nick heard a car in the driveway and replaced the cake plate on the kitchen bench. When he turned around Georgie was standing in the doorway, with her feral hair and her ragamuffin clothes. She didn’t look much different to when she was eleven or twelve, though she didn’t have purple streaks then, as he recalled.
    â€˜Hey there, Georgie