School was done for the year, so Ruthy came over to play most days with me in Mr Driver’s backyard. She often cried over little things, but always said it was just grief over Caleb, and that I wasn’t to worry that it was anything to do with me. I thought this was especially kind and I felt closer to her over those weeks than I ever had before. When we got very sad, we sat on Mr Driver’s sofa clinging to each other while he made us tea and biscuits.

Mr Driver arranged for Maynard to come to see me at least once every week. Maynard was very good at knowing when to talk about Caleb, and when to talk about something else completely. He caught me up on all the things that had happened at school while I was at Grange Primary, and often made them sound so entertaining he could make me laugh for a moment. Whenever I did laugh though, I immediately felt bad because it wasn’t right to ever feel happy again because of what had happened.

One of the saddest days was when I heard a big noise in my old garden, and climbing onto Mr Driver’s fence, I realised that Dad and Daniel were clearing away what was left of the old olive tree. Two men from Dad’s work had come with a trailer and a chainsaw to help them, and it took them all day and lots of noise to finish the job. When they drove away, I almost fell off trying to stretch to see what my garden looked like now. All that was left was a sad, bare, burned sort of hole. With the tree gone, it seemed that there was too much light shining into our place. It looked like a desert. It felt like my heart.

Whenever I heard the creak of our back door, I’d rush to a little gap between the timber fence palings between the houses, hoping for a glimpse of Mum. It wasn’t her very often. Ruthy said she largely stayed in bed or in the television room. Dad bought her ladies’ magazines as a treat on his way home two nights a week. She had returned to eating almost nothing and was usually in bed when Dad got home from work. Ruthy said the only good thing about it all was that she often kept Dad and Daniel company in the evening, staying up quite late with them in the lounge room. There was no Cadbury’s chocolate on Friday nights anymore.

One day, watching through the fence, I saw Mum come out of the house with Dad. She was in the same blue dress she was wearing when she walked off the plane, and she actually smiled at Dad when he opened the car door for her. I wanted to rush into my house to ask Daniel or Ruthy what was going on, but given what had happened, I was pretty sure I was cursed now, and if I stepped onto our place without permission, something else bad might happen.