The office was in a rundown shopping arcade near Parramatta station. She used to pass here all the time when she and Mum would catch the train to Parra, walk around the corner to meet Will at his college then return to the station to take the train to Westmead where Dad lay dying. From her seat across from the head of removals, aka Nathan, she could see the back of a restaurant they sometimes ate at, the three of them, pretending it was a normal thing to do—stop off for a five-dollar bowl of noodles on your way to check how much closer to death someone you loved had moved since yesterday. While Nathan behind the desk gave her a spiel about privacy—a little late for that, the voice she used to think of as Aunty Nic said—a tiny boy in a school uniform stopped and ran his hand over some crates stacked by the restaurant’s open kitchen door. Maybe the tiny boy spoke, because a man in a white apron stepped out of the restaurant, looked at the crates with his hands on his hips, shook his head and went back inside. The boy stayed there a moment longer then took off fast down the alley, his giant backpack bouncing. He probably wasn’t even born last time Lena had been to the restaurant. There were lots of people like that, she realised. More and more every day. All these people who lived in a world in which her dad did not exist.

‘I understand it’s difficult,’ Nathan was saying. ‘But the more detail you give me, the better job we’ll be able to do.’

‘Yeah, it’s just … I don’t even know if I can afford this. So, like, I don’t want to … to say all the detail and then I can’t afford to—’ ‘I see a dozen sex tapes a week. I’m not going to go looking yours up for fun. If you contract us to do this, we’ll find it and get it down wherever we can. If you don’t, I’ll never think about you or it again. Not being harsh, just real with you. If it’s my job to, I’ll care that someone is disseminating a video of you without consent. If it’s not, I couldn’t give a shit about the video and where it is. So, why don’t you tell me the situation so I can tell you what it might cost to deal with it and we can move forward or say goodbye. Okay?’