When construction on the house began we went out to help, without giving any thought of what that entailed. Mark’s not much of a handyman, and I spent my time making sure the kids didn’t stand on nails or fall into trenches, so it was more of a show-and-tell event. We followed Dad around the site as he pointed out where the bathroom would be, the kitchen and doors, and described the merits of the septic system and generator he’d chosen. He tried to interest Sarah in the local topography – the mountains in the near east are shaped a lot like people’s heads – the Dreamtime story about the lizard and the lake, and his latest readings about raising cattle and poultry. We’d eaten dinner around an open fire, slept in tents. We visited once after that.

Mum wouldn’t have liked the farm one bit. She’d wanted us to be in Brisbane, so we could go to decent schools and she could enjoy the bustle and social life of a city. My parents were forever ‘going out’ or ‘having guests in’. I can only imagine how desperately lonely she would’ve been if Dad had insisted they live in the country.

I come up behind a truck with cartoon drawings of dope leaves and Varga girls decorating its mudflaps. Its fat wheels send out a spray of pebbles. I hold my left hand against the windscreen to stop the rocks shattering the glass. I recall my mother doing this from the passenger’s seat when Dad was driving, her long fingers decorated with gold rings, some with diamonds, some with gems of blue or green, the one-off ruby engagement ring she loved the most, the one that’s wrapped in tissues in my coin purse.

Mum said she was glad she had a daughter to leave her rings to, but they never came to me. At first because I was too young, and then later, when I tentatively asked for them, because my father simply said no. He didn’t want to give over any part of my mother to me, to anyone.

I knew how special the ruby ring was, not in a dollar sense, because the ruby wasn’t that big and the gold band was thin, but in sentimental value. Mum was impressed Dad had chosen it without help from her, and had chosen so well. She’d admired his initiative, a quality she said many men lacked. When he’d decided to propose to her, Dad had taken an opportunity (how, who knew, for the story was hers to tell) to remove a ring from Mum’s jewellery box, place it on a piece of paper, carefully draw a circle around the inside of the ring – not once but several times, for good measure – and then find a ring that was the perfect size, with a gemstone in her favourite colour, made in Paris, the city of her dreams. He’d applied calm, manly logic to the task of buying women’s jewellery then had the word ‘love’ inscribed in cursive where the gold touched her skin. ‘How,’ our mother would say, arm stretched in front of her, her eyes on the ruby ring, ‘could I have said no?’ Her wedding ring, while larger and more traditional, seemed almost an afterthought.