He tried to not think about the boat, but in many ways it was still there. In the flattened ferns near the shoreline. In the hollow boatshed visible from the farmhouse. In the memories that refused to stop rushing through him. Most days he woke up and looked out his window, checking the wind and weather, before he remembered that it was gone. He only had to close his eyes and lean into a breeze to find himself back on its bobbing deck. Only had to run a palm down the handle of an axe to remember the grains of the Huon pine. He wondered when these memories would relax: when he would be able to think of the boat not with awful grief, but with fondness. With a splash of the joy it had given him.

He tried to lose himself in physical activity. In parading through the apple trees, checking heavy fruit that had survived the storms. If there was no work on offer, he would find something to watch. The hopping dance of a juvenile magpie, its feathers mottled grey, its steps unsure. The searching pecks of chickens as they picked around the yard. The evening scuttle of brushtail possums as they muscled up and down gums. And at dawn the movement of rabbits, bouncing out of the undergrowth to graze on the revived grass. With the rain and coolness they’d come back. Returning from a dream he’d almost forgotten.

~

Ned was watching the rabbits one morning when the stillness was broken by the cough of an engine. He looked to the road and saw a truck paused at Limberlost’s gate. A figure got out from the passenger side. Smoke blew from the truck’s exhaust. It rolled off, and the figure began walking down the driveway.

Ned put down his mug of tea, his plate of toast. Lately he’d been eating breakfast outside. Sitting at the table with his sister and father, listening to their careful talk, fielding their gentle questions: it had all been too much work. It was easier to go out, to settle his thoughts by looking for twitching fur.

He watched the figure approach. It was a man. Thin, coming slow, with a slight limp.

Ned felt anger tighten him. Another gawker. Whoever he was, he clearly hadn’t heard what had happened to the boat. Ned brushed crumbs from his hands and began moving towards the driveway. He knew he should be polite, but already he was struggling to stay calm. He wanted to shout at this stranger. To berate him for his rudeness, to chase him from the property. To tell him: It’s gone! There’s nothing for you here! I sold it, and it was torn into splinters! Go up the road, to the sharp bend. Sniff at its remains. Go have a whiff of what’s left of it, if you must.