She scuffs her way through to the living room, holding the bonnet in both hands. It would be safe from physical harm atop one of the towers of DVDs or VHS tapes lining the right-hand wall, but it’d be lonely surrounded by hard plastic with only the dull grey popcorn ceiling above. The toy crates were a better choice. There, the bonnet could nestle against other things made to be fondled by tiny hands, other things left behind by a child too spoilt or ignorant to appreciate what she had. The top toys on the top crates had views clear out into the street—or would if Nic opened the curtains. Even with them closed, they were able to enjoy the filtered sunlight for much of the day and the friendly glow of the streetlights after dark.

Nic lays the bonnet on top of the centre crate, which is full enough that the new addition perches like a crown with the clear air and views it deserves. She takes a careful step back. Something is making her heart hammer. What what what what? She returns to the crate. There! Little Bo-Peep with her crinkly blonde hair and wonky staff lined with tiny teeth marks is suffocating! Nic snatches up the bonnet. ‘Sorry, sorry.’ She repositions the doll, tiny chin on the edge of the crate so she is looking out to the street. ‘I was only resting it there, to see. You’re okay now.’

Bonnet in hand, Nic surveys the room as her heartbeat returns to normal. The TV cabinet is for trophies and ornaments, vases and decorative jars. Pretty things, yes, but hard: all metal, plastic and glass. Any of the sofas in here would make appropriately soft beds for the bonnet, but it is such a small, dear thing that it would easily get lost among the cushions and throws and blankets.

Back in the hallway she shuffles along the left-hand wall, pausing at the break in the newspaper stacks that leads to Lena’s room. She’s long thought of it that way, even though it was originally her own room, shared with Michelle, and then, after Michelle moved out and Mum died, it was the guest room and both kids would use it on their sleepovers, first snuggled together in the single bed then, older, fighting over who would get the bed and who the makeshift mattress of couch cushions on the floor. Around the time Will turned twelve, sleepovers with school friends became more attractive than sleepovers with Aunty Nic, and so it became Lena’s room, indisputably. Not every weekend, but a lot. Not every night in the school holidays, but most.