Damp hair matted to the sides of her face, Emma fell to her knees in the sand. Slumping forward, she buried her trembling chin in Lockie’s fur and whimpered a sound that twisted Kate’s stomach into knots. “I shouldn’t have gone anywhere,” she cried. “I should have stayed with him.” She looked up at Kate. “Are you sure?” she asked, eyes glossy with blind trust.

The cooling wind pulled at Kate’s T-shirt. “I’m sure,” she said softly. She wet her lips and tasted salt left behind from her tears minutes before. “I carried him up here about ten minutes ago and it happened not long after. I’m so, so sorry, Em.”

Stopping just a few feet away, Tilly wrapped her arms around herself to rub at her bare arms. As the sea rushed up to tease her toes, Kate shifted on the sand. Streamers of kelp rolled up to the shore. The tide was coming in. Kate’s eyes locked with Tilly’s—they had to move. Kate looked up to the van parked high on the hill. How the hell am I going to carry a thirty-five-kilo golden retriever up there?

Kate watched as Tilly crouched and smoothed a hand over the back of Emma’s head. “He was with Kate,” she said, her voice candied with kindness. “He was okay, Emma, Kate was with him.”

A shadow passed over the corner of the tool shed. Spinning around, Kate found Emma standing in the doorway looking exhausted. “Em, hey.” She turned back to pulling garden rakes and brooms aside to get to the larger of the two shovels.

“I’ve come to help,” Emma said.

Kate turned. “You don’t have to do that, Em.”

“No,” Emma said decidedly. “He was my dog. I’ll help.”

Kate reached into the locker and blindly freed the first shovel. There was so much of herself in Emma, she thought. Refusing Emma’s help would only upset her more. Kate handed her the shovel. “Hold this while I scrounge out another.”

“’Kay.”

Twilight quickly set in. Together, they decided on a spot between two gum trees at the edge of the bush. As Kate pierced the blade of the shovel into the soil and forced her foot down onto the step, she glanced up at the boarding house. The lights were on. Silhouettes passed by the study hall windows on the first floor and by the ground-floor common room. It was obvious that Tilly had advised the girls against venturing out to ask if Kate and Emma were ready for the service.

In silence, they dug until they were both knee deep in soil. “Have you done this before?” Emma asked, her voice hoarse. “Buried a dog?”

“Yeah, unfortunately,” Kate said. “We had a border collie named Missy when I was growing up. When my parents divorced and I came here to board, Missy went to live with my dad. I didn’t spend much time with my dad after the divorce so I rarely saw Missy, but I was home for the holidays in my final year and I was spending a few nights at Dad’s. He had to go to a wedding one afternoon and left me to look after my little sister—she was in her last year of primary school.”