Three Wishes

Gemma goes outside to swim in the backyard pool with Maddie. She’s upset because she believes she’s ruined Cat’s life by dating Charlie. Then, Gemma immediately thinks of all the reasons why Charlie is special, and she doesn’t want to give him up: “The right thing to do was to break up with him. It would be a noble gesture of triplet solidarity. It would be a sisterly sacrifice. It would be like going on a hunger strike” (158). Gemma reminds herself that she’s never been able to sustain a relationship with any man, so the affair with Charlie is bound to end soon. She secretly wonders if she’s capable of real love at all.

The Christmas meal proceeds smoothly, but an undercurrent of tension is palpable. Frank makes the awkward announcement that he and Maxine are involved in a relationship again. The triplets are shocked and appalled. Gemma’s mind once again drifts back to the past. She recalls the year that Frank wanted to take the girls to the waterslide. When Lyn announced she was staying behind, Gemma felt a subtle shift in alliances. She realized for the first time what it meant that her parents were divorced: “Clearly, Mum was going to take Lyn, and Dad was going to take Cat. Neither of them would want Gemma because she was adopted” (168). Six-year-old Gemma felt completely alone in the world, even though she really wasn’t adopted.

The chapter ends with an observer’s anecdote. A man is annoyed by the way women always enter the ocean step by step because of the cold water. The man recalls as a teenager that he witnessed three girls diving into the ocean in perfect unison, like dolphins. He vowed he would marry a girl like that someday but, of course, he didn’t.

On Boxing Day, Charlie and Gemma go for a motorcycle ride and a picnic. She asks him directly if Angela was having an affair with Dan rather than a one-night stand. Although he’s uncomfortable with the topic, Charlie confirms that they were, but that Dan broke it off after Cat got pregnant. Changing the subject, Charlie asks why Gemma never got married. She explains that she can never get past the six-month mark with anyone. Charlie says he plans to break through that barrier. Gemma flashes back to Marcus’s death. She feels disoriented because Marcus had such a forceful personality and always told her what to do. On the eve of the funeral, her sisters try to lend support but don’t know how to help. Eventually, they all decide to get high and smoke marijuana. Gemma fears to tell them the thought that occurred to her after Marcus was struck: “Four clear, cool, precise words: ‘I hope he’s dead’” (180). 

When the triplets were very young, they shared a secret language. This is a common phenomenon among multiple birth siblings: “Gradually, they talked less and less in their secret language and eventually it was erased from their memories, vanished like the lost language of an ancient tribe” (181). Although telepathic communication is also quite common among this group, the Kettle triplets are never able to sense anything about one another. They can barely manage ordinary verbal communication without interrupting each other. The day that Cat loses her baby, neither Gemma nor Lyn feel anything.

After the news of Cat’s miscarriage, her sisters and mother arrive to offer comfort. Cat thinks, “When they saw Cat, they stopped and crumpled as if they thought just by coming they could fix things and seeing her made them realize there was nothing to be done and nothing to be said” (183). Maxine shares the news that she also had a miscarriage when the girls were only three. Briefly, Cat feels a special connection with her mother before her angry side takes over again. Once the family leaves, Cat sinks into a deep depression that lasts for days. Both her father and Dan propose taking her out for a meal to get her to engage with life again, but she refuses.

Cat tells Dan that in the early years of her marriage, she would have had an abortion without thinking twice. Dan isn’t surprised. He says they were both invested in their careers, but Cat uses the incident to reproach herself for being a hypocrite. She is in the mood to fight and says that if she hadn’t drunk a whole bottle of champagne on the night that she first heard about Dan’s affair, she might not have miscarried. Dan refuses to rise to the bait. He announces that he’s going out to bring home some steaks. While he’s gone, Cat rummages through a stack of papers and finds his mobile phone bill. She notices some suspicious late-night calls during the holidays. When Cat phones the number, Angela answers. Cat now has proof that Dan is still involved with the girl. When Dan returns home, Cat studies his face and thinks, “He’s already gone. He’s already looking back at her, politely, coolly, a little sadly, from some other place far off in the future. He’s gone. Just like her baby” (203).

The chapter ends with an observer’s anecdote. A compulsive gambler remembers the first time he placed a bet. He was in a pub watching an old man and his three granddaughters having the time of their lives together: “I can still see those coins flipping and turning in the moonlight and those three girls jumping up and down and hugging their grandpa” (204). The observer became hooked on gambling from that point forward.

Lyn and Maddie are at a shopping mall bookstore when Maddie exhibits a case of the terrible twos by striking another toddler for grabbing her book. Mortified, Lyn slaps Maddie, even though Lyn deplores physically punishing a child. Back in the car, Lyn loses her way to the parking lot exit and has difficulty breathing. She thinks she’s having a heart attack. When she calms down, Lyn realizes that it was probably a panic attack, but she still finds this diagnosis unacceptable. Lyn thinks, “But they weren’t meant to happen to her. Other, more fragile people were meant to have panic attacks. People in need of looking after. O.K., if she was being completely honest—slightly silly people. Not Lyn” (214-15).

Back at home, Lyn tells Michael how badly Maddie behaved. He suggests she needs a sibling to keep her in line. Even though Lyn was planning to become pregnant again, she now wants to postpone having a baby because of Cat’s tragedy. Michael complains that Lyn is too enmeshed with her sisters. Changing the subject, she in on the verge of telling her husband about her panic attack in the car but then decides to keep silent. Cat interrupts the family evening by calling to announce that she’s drunk and has been involved in a car accident. Lyn leaves immediately to get her sister. She plans to switch places with Cat before the breathalyzer test. As children, the two swapped identities frequently to fool other people. By the time Lyn arrives at the scene of the accident, it’s too late. The police are already there and have charged Cat with a DUI. Cat then tells Lyn that Dan is leaving her for Angela.