(5)	"When your house is on fire, you don't go rushing in while the flames are still high, or even while the embers are glowing. You wait for all that to die down, then you can go in and see what's salvagable." Two women, one a mother, one not a mother any more. The mother is tall, blonde and slender, and you wouldn't know she had a baby five months earlier. The not-mother is short, dark and dumpy, and she looks like she's still pregnant even though she's been unpregnant five months now. Her house is still burning but she wants to go in anyway, because her baby's in there.
(4)	"With a lot of deaths you have something to blame. With this there's no-one to blame. It's natural that you should look for reasons." Two women, one middle-aged with grown children, one approaching thirty and suddenly without the child she'd always promised herself she'd have by then. The office is small and too-white, the chairs too deep to be comfortable. Outside the bushland sways in a warm wind, and the natural sounds seem too harsh and artificial to the not-mother, who is trying to cry but can't.
(3)	"You just let us know what you want, when you need us. You know where we are." Two women, one middle-aged with children aged between 7 and 21, the other drowning in gratitude and the fear that these are just empty words, like all the empty words that have gone before. People who knew her baby, who said they loved her baby. People who rarely called her, rarely returned her calls. People who loved her baby but not her, and when the baby was gone, they had no reason to call.
(2)	"You can always have another." A girl, early teens, at the bus stop. No idea what she's talking about. Thinks having babies is like changing outfits; if one doesn't work out, forget about it, have another. The not-mother wants to hit her, hurt her, tear off her trendy clothes and make her go naked, see how much she likes being vulnerable. The girl goes back to her magazine, oblivious.
(1)	The not-mother goes shopping for her dead baby, her baby who has been dead 49 days. She wants to buy her a xyolophone like she always promised, but can't find any.    "They're a Christmas item, dear. Come back at Christmas."
(0)	She buys some little shoes and a book about a mouse. She buys some wrapping paper that her baby would have liked. She buys some ribbons in the colours her baby wore best. She goes home and wraps the presents for her baby, puts them away in a drawer. Some day her baby will come back and they can open the presents together. She knows her baby will love the shoes, will be delighted by the book. She writes in a bright card, writes a letter to her baby. Our little secret, she writes, about the day they will be together again.