Two days after the fire, Miki was allowed access to the ruins of her shop. She stepped into the bed of ashes and debris on the concrete slab, and it was as if she was a ghost shifting between the present and the past. Her mind skidded in and out of her body, remembering a different ruin and comparing it to this one. In less than two years, she had completed a circle—twice now, finishing up with nothing except the clothes she was standing in.

She wasn’t the same person this time. She was older and stronger now, and had friends, new knowledge, more confidence. She knew she could start over because she’d done it before. She also knew that the important things in life couldn’t be seen and couldn’t be burned. Freedom. Choice. Friendship. Self-determination. Courage. All things Kurt had denied her. Yet she still cared about her brother. He was all the family she had. Her only friend in childhood. Her saviour from the farmhouse fire. Her guardian. Her guide. She wondered how he was faring in the remand centre: whether he was angry with her, or just angry at life. She would visit him soon. But not now. Not yet.

She scuffed through the ashes, astounded that the firemen had prevented the flames from spreading to the neighbouring shops. The margins of her shop were defined by the edges of the concrete slab. Like when the farmhouse had burned down, there was little left: the molten metal remains of the fryer, skewed tin from the roof, soot-scorched beams, a few bits of buckled furniture. Their home—the rooms at the back of the shop—had been annihilated. All the walls destroyed. Kurt’s filing cabinet gone. Everything erased. A stranger looking at the wreckage wouldn’t be able to tell what it was. They wouldn’t know what had gone on here. They wouldn’t be able to tell she had been locked in. They wouldn’t know Kurt had hit her here.

Miki was surprised by the emptiness inside her, the lack of emotion. Last time, she’d been crushed by the loss of her parents. Back then, she’d known so little of the world, but through the shop and its customers she had grown wiser. After the farm, she’d looked forward to a new beginning with Kurt, but hope hadn’t delivered. This time she was somehow calmer.

While Geraldine waited in the laneway, Miki wandered through the rubble, reflecting on the life she and Kurt had shared between the lost walls. It hadn’t all been bad. There had been moments of light in the darkness. There had even been times when she was happy. But that seemed long ago. Nothing was as it had seemed. She suspected Kurt had never really wanted to buy a farm. And maybe he didn’t even love trees. She doubted everything about him now.