Jeannie’s collection stretched back over decades. In one fading photo, I found Stephen. A long fringe covering one eye, he looked so much like Caleb! I imagined glancing out the window and seeing Stephen in the yard where he’d played as a boy. Our lives would never disentangle.

‘I have photos you can use,’ I told Jeannie. ‘And Leanne Beckwith left others with her history manuscript.’

Jeannie sounded excited. ‘Great! How about I come over after dinner and we go through them?’

Another car approached. I replaced the photos in Jeannie’s box. ‘Perhaps you should welcome the kids and…’ My words faded.

Jeannie knew how bad my situation was becoming. She closed her hand over mine. She was very kind. ‘Things will get back to normal, Phoebe. They will.’

She went back outside. Through a small side window, I watched the children and their parents. They poured out of dusty cars and embraced, shoes grinding into the gravel. How easily Jeannie slipped into the role of welcoming students for the day! It should have been my job. But she quickly returned, looking concerned. ‘There’s nowhere for kids to hang their bags.’

My mind flashed to the burned timber row of hooks in the old school house, the giraffe image where Matilda Miller used to hang her bag. ‘They can put them under their desks,’ I decided.

‘Even though it’s against fire safety regulations,’ Jeannie agreed with an ironic laugh.

I listened, arranging whiteboard markers and pens from the pencil case Harmony had rescued, while Jeanie chatted to flat-toned mothers and exhausted fathers about the importance of children getting back, as closely as possible, to their normal routines. Children poured into the classrooms, some chattering with the friends they’d missed. All normal kids with normal hair and normal clothes and piercings in normal places. If Caleb still looked more like them, could he have avoided these horrific rumours and accusations? I used to wonder what sort of young man he would become. I’d never imagined anything like this.

‘Phoebe? Are you in here?’ Leanne Beckwith pushed through the office door and detached the baby from her hip and nipple for long enough to wrap me in an effusive hug. Isla, now a little taller, stood beside her and sucked her thumb. ‘I’ve heard what they’re saying—’ She stood back, pushing me to arm’s length. ‘You know what they’re saying?’

‘Maybe,’ I whispered.

She crushed me for a second time. ‘I don’t believe it. Let me know what I can do. You saved my family. You’re Harmony’s hero.’

‘I’m not sure what can be done.’

She waved one hand in the air. Her fingernails were filed blue talons. Amazing that she found the time for such elaborate manicures. ‘You’ve still got my history manuscript? Maybe we can talk about it after school.’

‘Maybe some time next week.’