Joanne, ignored by her siblings, quietly drew stick figures on the bench with a finger dipped in strawberry jam. Woof vomited something plastic on the kitchen floor.

After five days the clouds clear, and the opposing forces of earth and sky begin to reclaim the water. The ground absorbs the lakes that cover it. The sun inhales triumphantly. Hard surfaces are coated in wispy columns of steam as water rises back to the heavens.

We try to revert to life as it was before the flood. It’s not easy. Three-quarters of the state has been underwater. Grown men are stoic in front of Mark’s camera but become emotional when tripped up by a kind question. Our neighbours find solace in exchanging platitudes: ‘We’re better off than some’, ‘Won’t forget that in a hurry’. We stand on the scorching footpath and talk over the warbling magpies about our shared experience, like soldiers after war, women after birth.

We help Lou and Andrew, since returned, clear the mud from their home. They don’t need us since Lou’s whole family is there – her solid, mulish parents, two muscly older brothers, her younger brother who’s not as hardy but good at directing the family workforce, two uncles, an aunt who brought ham-and-cheese sandwiches, honey for the children. I watch Lou’s family as they weave in and out of one another, touching a shoulder, working in pairs, the uncle and father in close conference about how best to move the fridge, the mother and aunt sharing a look at this or that ruined memento. Such a sad reason to come together, and yet . . . I regard them longingly, their relaxed warmth with one another.

Lou walks along her squelchy hallway carpet, running her hand through her hair, holding up one dripping, dirty belonging after another. ‘We can’t fix this,’ she says. ‘Everything’s wrecked.’

I don’t tell her that I agree. I’d always thought of rain as cleansing, encouraging growth, only temporarily the cause of mould and puddles, but this ferocious destruction is something different. This rain was violent. And mud coats everything, like the remnant drool of a subterranean creature that’s sunk back underground.

Lou and Andrew hold one another while Mark and I work on, guilt at our good fortune energising us. We pile destroyed wooden chairs, waterlogged books, soiled curtains and shoes onto the footpath. There are similar bundles of ruined personal treasures dotted along the street, waiting to be collected by rubbish trucks. The children find dinted spoons and filthy underwear in the gutter. Mark finds a plastic flea collar and we wonder what happened to the dog who should be wearing it. We wonder if it belonged to Jock next door.

The flood wasn’t part of my plan, not part of anyone’s. These few days will derail us for months. I know now that I should have recognised the flood as a warning, a caution. Everything I thought I could control was uncontrollable. Life, insistent, persistent, was about to take on new shapes, shimmery and unpredictable as petrol on a wave.