A burst of happiness surprises her. Like whenever she looked at her buzzing phone and saw Lena’s name glowing up at her. She squeezes between the nail salon chairs and steps over a box of records, nudging aside the piles of Women’s Weekly and Who magazines. Holding the bonnet in her left hand, she uses her right to move the fishbowl filled with copper coins onto the top of the stacked jewellery boxes to its left. She assesses the cleared space. Her calves are not as narrow as they once were, more’s the pity. ‘Sorry, darl,’ she tells the unplugged clock radio, moving it to rest on the Sydney Olympic Games commemorative Weet-Bix tin. It looks good up there, and the hair ties and ribbons and scrunchies in the tin will not be bothered by its presence. Perhaps they will feel even safer with that extra weight on top. Yes! Serendipity. Lena’s favourite word when she was nine. It felt like this: like joy that had been waiting for you to catch up to it.

Space enough now. She shivers with excitement, lifts a leg experimentally. No, that won’t be happening. No way she can get onto the dresser unboosted. She tests the closest pile with her foot; magazines slide against each other beneath the barely applied pressure. She apologises, withdraws. The records are too easily damaged to put her weight on. She could go back to the living room and empty one of the toy crates, but that seems unfair. She has already messed with their serenity this afternoon.

Of course! Like the empty hook, the exercise bike has been hiding in plain sight. Over there, under the window, a little further from the dresser than is ideal, but with only a few shoeboxes, a hairdryer and three small lamps between her and it. Easy. She reaches the bike without disturbing anything. Its bars are a tangle of bag straps, but the seat and frame are miraculously clear. She hoists herself up, sits for a second while she evaluates the task. If she can reach the top of the mirror frame on the dresser she can use it to steady herself as she leaps across. It isn’t even as far as she jumps to reach her bed each night, but that is at ground level and soft mounds of clothing form a crash mat if she misses. There is further to fall here and the landing ground a variety of hard, irregularly shaped things.