The Arcane Art of Folding Sheets (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780645800401)

When her friend asks, Why did we never have children?, Nell struggles to answer.

She has a career, she married late...there are any number of reasons but fate seems set on making her face up to the realities of her past. A casual observer would say that Nell has it sorted-loving wife, stepmother, Emergency nurse, best friend-yet in her honest moments she knows she is drowning.

This stepmother gig is harder than it looks. Work is no longer the vocation of her youth. Long suppressed voices threaten to reassert themselves as ungrieved loss demands to be recognized. A meeting with a woman who alleges she was raped by the man who was Nell's former lover, brings the truths of her own past into stark relief. The more palatable romantic wrapping she has tied her memories in begins to unravel and she understands that denial must give way to forgiveness of her young self.

With the support of the women in her family Nell confronts her ex-lover and begins a journey that will require both courage and compassion. The birth of her granddaughter helps Nell realise that the maternal line, no matter how branched, blurred or broken, is more important than biology. Nell stands ready to pass on the tightly held knowledge of past generations to her niece and grandchildren, knowing that being out of her comfort zone is a gift and a second chance.