‘You figured it out yet?’

Caleb breathed heavily, unable to move, feeling the sweat. ‘No.’

A harder slap. A real wallop, making his skin sting. Then: ‘You know why I’m here?’

‘No!’

‘Come on, dickhead.’

A pause. Caleb rushed out, ‘Something I did at school?’

Brendan’s voice and his breath were dark in Caleb’s ear. Sticky. ‘Mel’s back. And I ran into her. I saw her face. I saw what you did.’

What felt like a brick smacked into the back of his skull. His face plunged into the mattress. He had to move his jaw. A throb, a constant throb. Something somehow aching all the way to his knuckles.

‘I’m sorry, okay?’ Caleb said, almost repulsed by his own desperation. He tried to buck the bigger man off, felt useless, roped like a goat. ‘I’m sorry!’

‘I don’t give a shit what you are.’

Then, in a swift movement involving his knee, Brendan wrenched back on Caleb’s hand, and snapped it at the wrist.

THREE

SIDNEY CAHILL

He held his little girl above his head and waved her back and forth as though she were a doll. She laughed and giggled, a sound from so deep within her whole body shook. Her little chin sucked down into her chest as she tried to escape her laughing, his tickling fingers. He splashed her back into the water, her little feet kicking at the surface. He swept her back and forth and made noises for her. The water pretty cold off the mountain in the low light of afternoon. He didn’t care. Neither of them did. Boolarra, this sanctuary, was where he often travelled to escape his family. The sound of the waterfall did something to soothe him. His daughter seemed to share his happiness. Though they’d have to stop coming soon. Getting a bit too cold this close to Easter. He’d enjoy it while he could.

He scooped her from the cold and cradled her to his bare chest. The slight breeze cooled the water even more. She laid her head against his chest hair. He imagined her hearing the thud of his heart. If only he could make it stronger, so that she might better hear it.

Soon Sidney and his daughter were resting together on the bank of the creek in which Boolarra steadily dumped its contents. He was on his back, Amy crawling through pebbles. He smacked her hand as she grabbed one and put it in her mouth and she looked so offended, her little lip down-turning, that he laughed, and provoked in her the same. This was heaven for him. How he pictured the perfect afterlife. No pressure from anybody and just the time to simply be.

‘Not bad, hey sweetheart?’

She kept playing. She hadn’t started speaking yet—nothing beyond dad, really—but he knew she would soon. He knew, too, that it was important to talk to her normally. No baby talk. Get her learning the words right from day dot.