Outside, a grey fantail flitted to the ground so close she could see its white eyebrows. Then it saw her and fluffed its tail, swinging it side to side and chittering. Miki loved the trees and birds, but what she loved most couldn’t be seen. The way she felt in the forest. The scent of the bush after rain. The sound of bark crackling. Branches squeaking. The feeling of patience and agelessness, growth and renewal. The aura of trees. The sense of connectedness. Of everything having its place. She could stay here all day, breathing with the tree, drawing its life into her lungs.

But she heard Kurt’s muffled voice calling her.

When she joined him, he was still lounging against the tree. ‘What were you doing?’

‘Just standing inside the tree.’

He shook his head slightly as if he thought she was mad, but she knew he shared her affinity for the forest. It was what bonded them—not the long hours in the shop or the endless evenings in front of the TV, not even her homely cooking or the snug tidy rooms behind the shop, but this: time spent in their world beneath trees. As they stood together in comfortable silence, a gust of wind rustled in the canopy, and the leaves shifted like schools of fish flickering against the sky. They looked up, watching clouds scud by.

‘Lovely, isn’t it,’ Miki said.

Kurt’s long exhalation indicated he was relaxing at last. ‘All right then,’ he said. ‘I’m in a good mood. Ask me some questions.’

Occasionally when Kurt was feeling generous, he offered to share some of his memories. These opportunities were rare, so Miki stored questions for weeks. It was the only way she could learn about life before she was born and unearth who she was, where her parents had come from. This was knowledge she craved, and which Kurt kept under stringent control. She had to ask her questions with care; there was a fine line between his generosity and anger.

‘Tell me how you used to get to school,’ she said.

He sucked on his cigarette and smiled. ‘You’re so funny the way you want to know all these things. But I suppose it’s nice to look back … Dad used to drive me.’

Miki felt the forest melt away as she tried to imagine Kurt’s school. She pictured a small white building with green trim, a shady playground, gum trees up the back. ‘What did you have for lunch?’ she asked, hungry for detail.

‘Cheese sandwiches on homemade bread.’

‘Who were your friends?’

He puffed out a cloud of smoke and gazed up at the trees. ‘A boy called Chris and a girl called Cherry. They were twins.’

‘What games did you play?’

‘We dug in the dirt and made roads and gutters for water to run down when it rained.’

‘What did you do in class?’