The calm murmuring continues. I hear them moving back inside . . . something about going through the kitchen instead for now.

I sit frozen under the window as the cleaning noises intensify from the front. The speed of the crashing—piles of Lettie being thrown into the skips—picks up significantly without her there.

For now.

They’ll work their way through her house. Then they will go out the back. My throat’s making it hard to swallow. Splinter pushes his nose into my face, licks my ear. I shove him away, angry at my stupidity. There are no mosquito coils left.

He whines and clicks his nails on the floor. He’s right: we can’t just sit here and wait.

I stay where I am, listening.

They don’t keep her away from the bins for long. Pretty soon I hear her running up and down the hallway, her shoes banging on the floorboards I uncovered. Her voice pinches at my chest. The pacing and anxiety, the running out to check everything they take, trying to sneak it back in. The sound of her need tickles up the anxiety in my head. She needs those things to keep her head full. If all that’s taken away, there’s nothing. Nothing to stop her seeing what’s gone. I don’t let my thoughts go there. I don’t think of all the words, numbers, homework and shopping, the plants and cushions and bills to pay, the keeping normal, the TV blaring . . . or what would be left without them. Of where thinking goes when it has nothing to distract it.

I can’t stay crouched under your window all afternoon. I wait till the voices disappear deep into her house and then Splints and I make a run for it. I don’t get far: Lettie spots me trying to dash past her fence.

“Rae!” she yells around the white-suited people standing in her hallway in paper masks. She pushes past them to the gate. “They’ve been here since seven thirty.” I stare at her. “They’re going to take all my stuff.”

I don’t recognize her. She’s old-old, and weak and reaching out to hold on to my arm like I have some way of protecting her. The face masks look on with interest. Splinter tries to lick her through the gate. I shake off her fingers.

“You asked them in.”

Her hands drop away; I yank Splinter’s lead and turn and run, past our gate, past Oscar gawping from his front fence.

“Hey! Rae!”

I ignore him and keep running toward the river. The rage ball in me fueling my feet. His fault. I can feel those eyes on my back. He’ll keep.

WE DON’T STAY by the river, too many people on bikes and Splinter wants to chase them all. We veer up, cut through Footscray and Seddon and into Yarraville. We walk the streets, getting ideas, waiting for the sun to set.