‘Nah. Yeah. I don’t know. I was always more serious about us than her, I think. She didn’t like …’ He wets his lips, cringes again. ‘She didn’t like how I was with the kids.’

‘What? You’re great with kids. Always have been.’

He nods, barely. ‘She said I acted like they were mine.’

Like cold water over her face. She is alert, heart racing. ‘Isn’t that a good way for a stepdad to act?’

‘I’m not their stepdad, though. She’d said it a few times. You’re not their dad, Will. They already have a dad, Will. I didn’t … I s’pose I didn’t really get what she was saying. I just … I love ’em, you know?’

‘Yeah.’ She should say something more. Comfort him or offer wisdom. But his pain is so big it’s broken free of his body and is pushing up against her chest.

‘There was this one arvo I keep thinking about. Coupla months back. Haymish’d been having a hard time at school. He’s small for his age, you know. Bright as, but looks four instead of six. Some kids were giving him a hard time. Name-calling, leaving him out of games at lunch and that. Mercy talks to his teacher about it, and she says she’ll have a word to the kids, remind them to be kind.

‘A few days later, Mercy gets a call at work. Haymish has crawled into the art cupboard and won’t come out. Merce’s stuck at work—no one else to mind the pharmacy—but I’ve finished for the day, so I go up to the school. Little fella comes out as soon as he sees me. Big cuddles, his face all wet. Tells me what’s been happening.

‘Apparently the kids who got told off for being mean are punishing him for dobbing. Being real nice in front of the teacher and then kicking him or knocking his stuff off the desk when she’s not looking. That lunchtime a kid had kicked him in the shins while another kid took his sandwich and stomped it into the dirt.’

She takes it all back, the gratitude for Will’s unchanged nature. He is too transparent, too raw. How has he got to this age, been through the things he has, and remained this soft and open? What was it Steve used to say about her face when she gaped up at him adoringly? A thumb without a nail. That was her. Is Will.