Dad follows her out onto the street and I watch them from the back seat. I can stay here, watching. Or I can join them in the house.

I open the car door and swing my leg out, manoeuvring the crutches so I can stand. From the gate I notice all the different touches: there’s a new netball ring adjusted to the correct height. There’s a planter box near the front door, filled with flowering violets. Two large red wooden numbers hang from the letterbox, just in case you can’t find the house. It’s like one of those pictures where you have to ‘spot the difference’. I’ve counted three, but I bet there are more. There are hundreds just inside me.

My parents have already vanished indoors. I didn’t tell them that I saw my bedroom weeks ago. I walk down the hall. It smells like fresh paint and there’s no hint of the house it used to be.

I can hear Dad clomping through rooms, in his work boots. There are flat-pack boxes everywhere, and the furniture pieces have been dumped but not assembled. I hurry past my room, not ready to see it yet, with everything in it.

‘Clem,’ calls Mum.

I find her in the kitchen. She’s holding a plastic bag, cradling it like it’s a baby bird that will die if she puts it down.

‘Do you want to help me?’

Not really. I’m not ready for all this. I settle for a shrug that of course Mum ignores.

‘Can you get the door?’ she says.

Our old house didn’t have a back door; instead there was a side door off the lounge that took you to a narrow walkway covered in vines. I used to play hide-and-seek in the walkway with Bridge. Now there’s a big, impressive, heavy glass door that opens straight outside. It’s all light and white and new. Even the lock works with the first turn. There’s no jiggling trick needed.

But stepping out into the backyard, I’m transported back to before the fire. It looks just like it always did: a green, landscaped magical world. Dad’s been busy, obviously, restoring it to this.

‘Here, Clem. You take it out,’ says Mum, nestling the bag in my arms.

‘What is it?’

‘Take a look.’

I see a sapling wrapped in wet newspaper. ‘A tree?’

She smiles. ‘Not just any tree.’

I stick my head closer and sniff. I can smell the dirt around its roots and the freshness of the tiny green leaves, which look like the regrowth on trees after they’ve been blackened by fire.

‘A eucalypt?’

‘Yes. But what sort?’

And then I get it. I know what it is. ‘It’s a Eucalyptus camaldulensis!’

She nods, a smile spreading across her face. And then I’m smiling, too, because it’s a baby Separation Tree.

‘Dad did it? He grew the saplings?’