Critical, still unconscious. But stable. She hears the inflection of hope in her voice, a hollow flute.

Another squeeze of the hands before Wendy is drawn away by a young man Laura doesn’t know. But she returns a moment later.

You’ll come to the house, won’t you, Laura? You remember how to get there?

Oh, Wendy, I don’t think …

You don’t have to stay long if you need to get back to the hospital.

Laura glances at her watch. No. She’s been away too long already. Avril will need a break.

A hurried kiss on Wendy’s cheek. We’ll talk soon. I’ll call you.

2

Laura

Two weeks later

Night persists in the 6.00 am sky, tenaciously black, lunar lit. Children draw the moon like this, a skinny rind in shiny yellow crayon, glowing like there’s no tomorrow. You could draw the full moon, too, she’d suggested to Cooper many years ago, sketching it for him, big and round like this. But he’d told her, with five-year-old certainty, that that was the sun, and didn’t she know the difference?

So beautiful, the night sky, its cold glittering, its trinketery of stars. Turn the other way and it’s already vaporising, an aura on the horizon warming into day, all pastel watercolours, pink and indigo, god-gilded. She is a body suspended between dying night and dawn.

Laura tugs at the door to the shed, wrenching it free from the warped frame. Pushes it shut to keep the warmth in and the cat out, a slinky brown curl of fur resisting the barrier of her shin.

A quick check before she leaves for the hospital. No time to linger. This might be the last lot she sees into the world for a while, but there are more important things. Critical things. Cooper is her priority, and Avril, too. Laura’s taken overdue long-service leave from the university so that everything else can wait for however long it takes. She shivers, hugs a hard truth to herself. Such a long, long time it is going to take. Does Avril have any idea how long?