The tip was on a gravel side street at the edge of town, and Kurt always drove the rough road too fast. This evening, he swung through the open gate and sped to their usual spot beneath the fluorescent light near a large mound of garbage, pulling up so sharply Miki jolted in her seat. Kurt was laughing as he jumped out and dragged the rubbish bags off, tossing them onto the heap where they split open and leftovers surged out, cans and bottles and wrappers. ‘That was funny,’ he said. ‘You should have seen your face while you were trying to hold on.’

Miki hadn’t been laughing, but now she smiled too. Kurt’s moments of humour were rare since the fire, so it was important to make the most of them. It helped her survive darker times.

She clambered onto the ute with an old straw broom to sweep off the remnants of rubbish, while Kurt climbed a pile of dirt to make phone calls. It was the same every Saturday; he would spend nearly an hour up there, attending to his business interests in Hobart. Often she would try to eavesdrop, but he kept his voice low and scowled at her if she came too close. Investments and decision-making were for men, he said. Women were destined to serve.

Miki used this time to explore. Once the tray was swept, she took the torch from the ute and set off among the garbage. The stench of rotting rubbish was horrible, but she didn’t mind. She was outside, away from the shop, and the food scraps at the tip attracted plenty of wildlife. Coming here was a highlight of her week.

As she wandered away from the ute, her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she began to see small scurrying movements among the trash. When something rattled, she swung her torch to a spotty quoll dragging a piece of paper with its teeth. It froze in the light, eyes wide. Slowly, Miki pulled out a chunk of meat from the plastic bag in her pocket, and lobbed it towards the quoll, but it ran away, a shadow slipping over a mound. Then it reappeared, snatched the meat, gulped it down and glanced at her briefly before scuffling away again.

Quolls used to visit the chicken coop on the farm, but they killed the chickens and ate the eggs, so Father and Kurt shot them. Miki hated that the quolls murdered chickens and left them strewn in bits across the yard, but killing quolls didn’t fix anything—they needed to eat too. After Kurt had shot the fourth quoll and strung it up on the fence, Miki had quietly spent a few afternoons roofing the coop with wire. She’d also filled the holes under the fence with rocks. Then there had been no more dead chickens or quolls.