The vastness made Faye aware of her solitude. Her husband and friends were walking in the other direction. It would take almost two hours before she got back to Heuningbos Hut. How small she was out here. How alone. Yet, as she walked on, breathing in the soft air, glancing at the tiny tubular flowers that lined the path, and listening to the sharp chee-chee-chee of the sunbirds as they flew, quick and erratic, between the proteas, Faye was at peace. She felt connected. To what, she couldn’t be sure.

Composed again, she felt a pang of regret that she hadn’t had the courage to enjoy the forest while she was alone. Perhaps there’d be other opportunities during the next four days. She thought about the pigs and wondered if the others had seen them. Perhaps they’d see more during the hike. It was ridiculous for her to have panicked and imagined that the animals might attack her. She was glad there hadn’t been anyone else around to witness it and chided herself for not having read up on the wildlife in the area. It could’ve prevented her imagination from spinning into the far corners of absurdity. She might’ve been calm enough to photograph the animals. What a picture the three peering at her over the leaves would have made. She would have captioned it “Napoleon, Josephine and Maria,” she thought, even though it would have made no sense to anyone but her.

Faye regularly cursed her predisposition to be fearful. How and why had she become afraid of so many things? It annoyed Derek because it added to her inclination to, as he put it, “consistently overreact” and “always anticipate the worst possible scenario.” He was right, wasn’t he? It’s why she was returning to the hut, wasn’t it? Because she feared something terrible might happen to Clare.

Fear was why Faye hadn’t resumed her career despite, when she left to give birth, agreeing with Derek that she would go back to work the year Zach began school. By then though, after being at home for six years, she felt petrified by the notion she wouldn’t be able to adapt to the changes in the medical equipment industry. She was afraid she no longer had the aptitude and confidence to understand and sell highly technical products, and was sure she’d mess up and fail. She wasn’t, she told herself, familiar with the computerisation, digitisation and whatever other technological advancements had been introduced at so rapid a rate in recent years. She worried she was too far behind to catch up.

“Fair enough,” said Derek with a shrug, when she told him of her concerns. “You’re not the quickest adopter of new technology and systems. In fact, you’re more of a technophobe.”

“Really? I didn’t realise I was that—”

“Well, think about how long it took you to learn Excel,” he said.