She found him sitting at the kitchen table with William. Mattie sat next to him on a proper chair with a cushion now, making a house out of fingers of toast covered in lemon butter, some of which she appeared to have eaten. Maxi had lemon butter on her nose.

The table was mostly covered in draftsman’s plans, the edges held down by the jar of lemon butter, a jar of Vegemite, two coffee mugs and the sugar bowl.

‘Then if we put bracing here,’ William said, ‘we can put on two more solar panels or even three, which means it would be easy to have a small house or one twice as large with almost no extra cost . . . Oh, hi, Jed.’ He stood. ‘Like some toast? The coffee’s hot.’

And it was her kitchen. But William looked after people.

‘Yes, please.’ She sat as William refilled Mattie’s mug with milk. ‘Say, “Thank you, William.”’

‘Tank ook illum,’ said Mattie.

Sam beamed at his genius daughter, then looked back at the plans on the table. ‘There has to be a way of utilising the sun-facing walls too . . .’

Jed sipped the coffee William handed her, bit into the toast. Sourdough, and excellent. He must have brought it down from Sydney. And it was fresh. But what was he doing here on a Tuesday, when he should be at uni? ‘When did you get back from Sydney?’

‘Last night,’ he said shortly. He added, ‘I’m not going back.’

‘Why? What’s wrong?’ demanded Jed. Had he had an argument with Scarlett? Had Scarlett, just possibly, decided to be more than friends with Alex?

‘Nothing’s wrong.’ William shrugged. ‘That kind of architecture just isn’t for me, that’s all. I don’t want to design apartment buildings, or a new Parliament House, or little boxes for people to live in. I’ve got all the drafting skills I need . . .’

‘Will’s come up with a really great idea,’ said Sam, and once more Jed just looked at him, drinking in the enthusiasm and happiness in his face, just looked, so she hardly heard the words. ‘The factory can produce pre-fab houses. Passive solar efficient ones that can have stand-alone power systems or be connected to the grid.’

‘And they’ll be bushfire proof and cyclone proof,’ added William. ‘We learned a lot after Tracy.’