We had an art class after lunch, using pencils and pastels, anything that wouldn’t need water. Children drew bright images on butcher paper and pinned them to the walls. Not all the images were of fire. Some children drew green hills and pastel flowers as though their drawings could conjure such scenes back to life. I was relieved to see Billy was content to draw, if not to talk. I’d have to consult his mother when she came to pick him up – or ask Jeannie to.

At 3 pm, I retreated once more to the office. A couple of parents caught me out and glared while they pulled their children away. Jeannie, the school’s positive front, smiled at everyone. I heard Billy’s mother reassuring her that he was getting all available care.

Most had left before I noticed an older woman lingering at the back of the room. Always alert for people who didn’t belong, I checked the remaining children were safe, then approached her. ‘I’m Betty Miller,’ she said. ‘I should be picking up Matilda for Kate but I can’t. She’s dead. And Kate’s dead.’

Then she collapsed into a child’s chair to cry and apologise. I told her she didn’t need to, that I was a mother, too, I understood. Parents and children need to protect each other, being unable to do so is unbearable.

‘I keep thinking of Matilda and Kate lying in… in fridges like they show on television,’ she said. ‘In plastic sheets. Cold. We could have gone to Melbourne for the day. My baby and her baby. I want them with me.’

Jeannie saw me taking her box of photos to my car. She followed me outside. I wound my window down. ‘You’ll take care of them, won’t you?’ she asked.

I regarded her, very closely. She couldn’t possibly know I was responsible for other missing things. But I’d have to give the photos back. All of them.

‘Come see my own photos tonight?’ I said. ‘I’ll make coffee. We could share some wine?’

‘Wine sounds good. I’ll see you then.’

Pausing at a surviving stop sign I glanced at the topmost photo on my passenger seat, an image of old Brunton. Main Road trees, ones now reduced to ashes, then were saplings. I drove into a blacker landscape. This was the route Caleb had taken, riding homewards from the CFA to get his sketchbook. I wanted to grieve, I wanted to mourn with my neighbours, with my students and their families, but I couldn’t. Before I could feel anything, I had to deal with these accusations, this blame, find some way to protect my son.