Back at the house she slid a builder’s dust mask over her nose and mouth. ‘I spent yesterday in Nic’s room,’ she said, her voice muffled. ‘There’s space enough to move there now. You can take over. Concentrate on getting the floor clear.’ She handed him two rolls of garbage bags. ‘Green for rubbish, white for clothes or anything else that can go into the charity bins. When I say rubbish, I mean shit that’s broken, faded, useless. Shit no one would want, even for free. You’ll be filling five green for every white, trust me. Appliances, framed stuff, anything big, can go straight into the skip as is. Paper recycling bin is already full, so magazines and paper products go in the skip, too. Put anything that looks precious or important on the kitchen table—I started a pile there already. I’ll go through it later.’

‘Leen, wait. Can’t we get some lunch or something? Catch up?’

‘I’ve got too much to do. You go eat if you have to.’ Lena plonked herself on the floor in front of a plastic storage container, pulled out a stack of CDs, dumped them into a green garbage bag by her side.

‘Seriously?’

‘Sorry. I really can’t stop, though,’ she said, not stopping.

‘Right. Okay. But hey, do ya want me to sort through those CDs before you chuck ’em? Might be something good in there.’

‘There’s nothing good, Will.’

‘Maybe not to you, but something Aunty Nic likes. Or I’d like. Or that we could sell.’

‘Think like that and we will never, ever be done here.’

‘So you’re just chucking everything?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Would Aunty Nic be okay with that?’

Lena pulled the mask down so it hung at her throat. ‘She will not be okay with any of this. It doesn’t matter. If we don’t clear enough space they won’t let her come home.’

‘We can make space without chucking everything, surely. She’s just gotta be able to move around easily, yeah? A few CDs aren’t going to make a difference.’

Lena stood, pulled the CDs back out of the garbage bag and handed the stack to Will. ‘Go for your life.’ She gestured to the dozen or more clear plastic storage tubs lining the wall, and stomped out of the room.

He flicked through the CDs—Panpipe Classics, Music to Dream To, Classics for Bedtime. Fair call, Leen. He dropped them back into the garbage bag, dug into the container for the next lot. 75 Best Nursery Rhymes. The cover left a film of sticky dust on his fingers. He chucked it and the six or seven beneath it into the bag, sung out to Leena that he could do with a rag or something for the dust.