We sat on the floor alongside the mattress, so as not to go far from Bindi and also to try and comfort Charlie, who kept trying to burrow under the couch. I covered him with a blanket, which miraculously calmed him a fraction, and we drank and talked as the storm roared around us. It was like having a surround sound stereo playing the very opposite of a relaxation CD and I prayed that everyone was safe inside somewhere like we were.

While Jedda’s place felt solid, I couldn’t help thinking about the stumps that held up the shack, hoping the wind wouldn’t lift it right off them just like it had done to poor Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

Aside from the screaming wind and rain, the only other constant was the voice of the woman on the ABC—our only connection to the outside world—as she gave updates on the cyclone’s intensity and predicted duration. What had begun as a category five up north near Dampier had thankfully been downgraded to a category three now it had hit us. Apparently there was the possibility of a storm tide, which sounded terrifying considering our proximity to the beach. We’d be safe here at Jedda’s, but once again my thoughts drifted to the shack. Would there be anything to return to?

I suppose it could have been worse—I could have finished the renovations. Seeing all my hard work destroyed would have been so disheartening.

When Jedda and I grew tired of Uno, we played a couple of rounds of Pass the Pig and then moved on to a jigsaw puzzle.

‘My friend told me this would come in handy one day,’ Jedda said as she peeled the plastic off a present she’d been given five Christmases ago. Entitled ‘Crocodile Tale’ and painted by a Yindjibarndi artist, the image made my heart simultaneously sing and palpitate. While the thousands of tiny, brown, yellow, black, red and orange dots made a captivating picture, piecing them together felt near on impossible.

Luckily, we had all night. Possibly even longer.

Although Jedda said she couldn’t remember the last time she’d done a jigsaw, she turned out to be a pro. We put the border together quickly and then started to fill in the middle. As we worked, our conversation grew more personal. Jedda told me about how the depression following Jack’s death had almost killed her and I spoke about my childhood, being tossed between my mum and dad like a tennis ball and longing for parents who didn’t have a love/hate relationship with each other. We talked about our hopes, dreams and fears for our children, growing up in a world that seemed to get scarier and more dangerous by the minute.