I raced to Rosie’s front door. ‘It might not be safe here. Can I take you and Sean…?’

‘We’re leaving. I told you earlier. My brother’s nearly here.’ Rosie closed the door in my face.

Sitting in the front of Jack’s ute while the Beckwiths squeezed in behind, I flicked through the album. Caleb as a smiley blond baby, all eyes and new teeth. The prideful uncertainty of him on his first day wearing a school uniform. Posing for football photos covered in mud, and grinning. Where had he gone? I closed the album and watched Jack’s fingers on his gearstick in his ute. Hairs on the back of his arms were fine and greying. He was both strong and vulnerable. ‘Will you be all right?’

‘Of course.’ A muscle twitched in his jaw, as if he was chewing tough words. ‘We’ve trained for years.’

‘Are you driving one of the new tankers?’

‘Yep.’

We turned onto Reefview Road just after the intersection with Anzac Avenue. Jack’s property was old farmland but few trees remained near his house, where they would have been dangerous. His drains were small moats and strong mesh protected all the doors and windows. Multiple water pumps were connected to underground hoses carrying water from a local dam. They could be activated and powered by a generator Jack had installed himself. Jack parked near steps leading to his balcony.

‘It’s the safest place in the Yarra Valley,’ I heard him promise Leanne while I herded the smaller Beckwiths.

Jack unlocked the ember-resistant screen to let us in.

‘Call me when you find Caleb?’ I demanded.

Depositing his boxer-dog-shaped lighter on the hall stand, Jack opened his arms. ‘Of course. He knows how to look after himself. Even if he does forget his phone.’

I stepped into his arms. He was warm and already smelled of smoke. Cigarettes? I pressed my face against his shoulder. He’d been smoking again. He’d been trying to quit for a while, but said smoking made him feel closer to his father. Also a veteran, Jack’s dad had been given that lighter in Vietnam. People invest so much emotion in possessions. I imagined the weight of the lighter in my pocket, the comfort I’d feel transferring it to my cedar chest. My collection was like assembling tiny bits of souls.

I allowed my glance to drift over Jack’s shoulder to the hazy blue horizon. ‘How bad will this get?’

‘No one knows. Look after yourself. Don’t worry. Caleb’s mates will look out for him.’

Which mates? Most of his friends were left behind in Melbourne. He’d been beginning to make new friends when everything changed. AFL teammates like the Zynda boy barely waved at him now when they passed on the street. Since the accident, there had only been Penelope.

Jack picked up his lighter. It was his pocket it slid into, not mine. But I was in his house, surrounded by items he valued – the antique dining table he found at Watson’s Antiques last summer, the leather sofa where we shared a first, tentative kiss, the sideboard and hutch his mother had brought from Queensland – a collection of blues music that he listened to in vinyl recordings on an old record player. For the warmth, he said. I remembered more innocent times here, Jack, me and Caleb.