My palms are damp. Until recently, the lake house hadn’t seen much action: the squatter sleeping in the empty house for those months before moving on to another home, and that day Mum came to take me away. She could barely walk, let alone drive. I always tell myself it was an accident, it was the booze. The official cause of death was accidental drowning, but she was unconscious before the car hit the water. There were no brake marks. I could have hugged her, that day before she left, I could have told her I loved her, whether I believed it or not. I could have told her she couldn’t take me away but she could still visit.

‘Lina,’ Cain says now, his arms loaded up with bags. ‘Coming inside?’

I turn from the house, smile. ‘Yeah.’

•

The boys cart the food and bags into the living room, Axel insisting Claire and I don’t do any lifting. So I go ahead and open the place up. It seems just the same as always inside, as though nothing happened, yet I feel anxious, fearful of going into rooms alone. The fireplace is there, right where I was cuffed. The blood has been cleaned from the carpet, the floors. When they come in, Axel drops his bag near the door. ‘Sorry,’ he says, rushing past me to the bathroom. ‘I’m busting.’

‘It’s just down the hall.’

He turns back. ‘Thanks,’ he says.

I look around the room, memories of my childhood overlaid with memories of that night. A sickening double composition. I don’t know if I can make it upstairs, face the spot where it happened.

‘Where are they sleeping?’ Cain says, holding Claire’s bag.

‘Do you mind sleeping upstairs?’ I say.

‘I’m happy with that,’ Claire says. ‘Wherever you want to put us.’ I lead Claire upstairs, pausing at the top. I look down and swallow. There’s no sign of what happened that night, not even here, yet my breath catches in my throat. ‘In here?’ she asks, stepping past me.

‘Yeah,’ I say. Cain comes up, drops the bags in the room for her and heads back downstairs.

I breath out and step into the room. ‘Wow,’ Claire says. ‘Pretty view. So isolated.’

I hear the boys walking through the house. They emerge outside on the lawn below us.

‘Look at them,’ Claire says. ‘Axel tries to be macho but they’re just a couple of little boys when you get them together.’

‘I was just thinking the same.’

Cain pushes the swing he hung, it twists on its rope. Can I really sell this place? I watch as Cain points to something across the lake, then Axel throws his head back in laughter, his hand cupping Cain’s shoulder.

‘It must be scary being here again?’ she asks, turning her eyes away from the boys to me.