I get into my vehicle, and she says, with a sudden strength to her voice, ‘I’m really sorry.’

My hand is on the key, but I do not turn it.

‘Don’t do anything stupid, will you? It’s just another threat. They’re not going to kill anybody.’

I turn the key, and don’t say, But I might.

I drive away. Maybe she didn’t know. Maybe she really thought Ben was ‘kinda cute’. I don’t think so. For all I know, she masterminded the whole thing and is now trying to save herself. I drive slowly and methodically, turn at my mailbox, and wind my way to my decrepit house. But as I get close I see something is different in the garden. It is in James’s area. There is soil heaped around the edges of the plot. Stupidly, I think someone has dropped off fresh topsoil for me, and then I understand that the soil has not been deposited — it has been dug up. I leap out of my ute and run to the gravesite, knowing they have dug up his bones and taken them, just so I know they’re serious. On the edge, my foot catches on the pile of dirt, and I fall headlong into the hole they have dug, my hands stretched out in front of me, and I land with a thud on the coffin, my son’s coffin. I rest my head on it, knowing it hasn’t been opened and that what remains of him is still there in this little box. I hold the box and whimper, unable to face anything more.