Onyx: Jumping in to say thanks @ACantha. Great advice for @PastelPlaything. I’m here to tell you she definitely made the right decision.

‘He was that angry?’ I asked.

‘Yes. Excuse me, the baby’s bouncing on my bladder. I’ll be back.’

She left her ultrasound image on the table and didn’t look for it when she returned. I stood. ‘I have to go. Thanks for sharing, Penelope.’

Alone, I walked haunted streets. My past was a series of ghosts. I seemed to see the sheen of tents on the oval where firefighters were once a camp dense as an ocean, an echo of gold-mining shantytowns. I stared at the ultrasound’s sepia-toned spheres, shaping themselves into a baby. The image could easily be Caleb. I remembered instincts he was born with – apparently walking when held upright, grasping for empty air if moved too quickly. The boy who grew up to express anger with his appearance, to be suspected of murder.

I stored the ultrasound with my collection at home. Guilty. This was a house of guilt.

21

21

JUSTITIA | Goddess of Justice

Introduced to the pantheon of gods by Emperor Augustus to promote the idea of Emperors and government as protectors of fairness. Justitia was often depicted with a set of scales and a sword.

The grey ceiling, stained with stripes of blind-filtered light, was one with my insomnia. On its expanse Caleb’s actions replayed, minor details shifting in significance, ebbing and swelling, layering meaning, changing like Rorschach inkblots. Stephen once enrolled me in a sleep clinic. ‘You said it was anxiety that made you steal,’ he said. ‘Be less anxious. Get new hobbies. Cut down on alcohol.’ But without alcohol, I could hardly close my eyes. One night, I imagined an alarming range of ailments – anxiety, depression, stress, OCD, sleep apnea, narcolepsy.

Post-traumatic stress disorder. Jack, after Iraq. Caleb had been traumatised long before the fire. And I knew children need to rebel against their parents to discover themselves. If Caleb was guilty, was it my fault? In how many ways had I failed?

Caleb’s drawings were an art history of his life. I used to stare at his kindergarten finger paintings, hoping to identify a horse, or a spaceship, or a landscape. ‘What does this mean?’ I asked him once, pointing at a brilliant composition of oil pastels afire with possibilities.

‘Nothing.’ Caleb never wanted to explain his art.

I’d always struggled to understand him. His sudden abandon-ments, for instance. When he quit AFL, was it because, as an adolescent, he was still trying on different versions of himself? Maybe he’d be a lawyer like his father and grandmother, or a teacher like me. Any future had still seemed possible, so recently. All he had to do was cut his hair, remove his piercings, reverse every decision he’d ever made about himself.

How could I have been so deluded?