The setting, nestled in the forest, was pretty, and with imagination and a bit of squinting to keep details out of focus, you could picture it as idyllic for kids. There was a blow-up swimming pool, deflated since the summer months, now with plastic toys floating among a few dead leaves. There was a tyre swing hanging off one of the big gum trees.

Paula remembered Cameron, when he was still little, hanging upside down on the tyre swing in the home paddock of the Maryvale property, grinning like a happy monkey. It was the first time she and Remy had driven up there to visit Stacey in the new place. With that move to Maryvale, Stacey had given up a teaching job she loved so she could support Matt in his new scheme to become a cattle farmer. They’d thrown a modest inheritance and all their savings into buying the small farm. Stacey had been fizzy like a little kid to have their first proper visitors, and she swept Paula and Remy through a tour of the weatherboard house they had started to renovate. ‘This is what Matt needs,’ she said, as if talking about treatment for a difficult patient. ‘We’re away from all the stresses in the city. It’s just the four of us, loving each other.’ Paula and Remy had smiled and made supportive noises. In private, they whispered about the precarious finances, Matt’s changeable moods, the foolishness of the whole enterprise. Then again, the kids seemed happy and Stacey’s chatter about their new adventure had functioned as a bright wall designed to deflect questions or concerns.

‘You the doctor?’ Ruby called out. The fourteen-year-old girl peered down at Paula from the verandah.

‘Yes. Hello, Ruby.’

Paula fetched her medical bag from the passenger seat and picked her way up the wooden steps, avoiding the splintered boards, while Ruby held the front door open for her. Paula smiled but Ruby just squinted back, watchful and defensive, trying to read Paula’s face, anticipating judgement.

The interior of the house was in better shape than you might expect from the outside. The furniture was shabby and mismatched but the place was clean and organised.

Jye was wearing clean pyjamas and lying on the nubbly mustard-coloured couch, rugged up in a mauve cotton blanket, watching Bluey, an animated series with dog characters, on a chunky old laptop. On the coffee table next to the laptop was a glass of water, a plate of half-eaten Vegemite toast, a bowl of green jelly and a bottle of children’s paracetamol with a measuring glass sitting on top of the lid. It was obvious Ruby had constructed this little Sick Boy nest for him. Paula had an urge to spin around and grab the girl in a tight hug for being such a gorgeous big sister, but she assumed that wouldn’t be welcomed.

‘Hello, Jye. My name’s Paula. I’m a doctor.’