My house had survived, standing in its burned-out garden, as had Rosie’s next door. The houses on either side were gone. The house down the street where Kylie Hart ran her therapy business had been completely destroyed. I remembered her previous advice about Caleb. Talking always helps, she’d insisted. At the edge of my driveway, molten metal had run from the carcass of Caleb’s inherited four-wheel drive like blood settling into a silver scab on the ground.

Penelope was white in the back seat.

‘You’ll be fine. I’ll see you later. Okay?’

Wordlessly, she nodded.

‘I’ll walk you down,’ said Jack.

My own yard had been colonised by arson chemists in disposable white suits. Jack and I coughed together into the smoky air, feet sinking in the ashy remains of brown gum nuts, green leaf litter, insects. Here, I first saw Jack, shaking with the effort of rescuing Sean.

I grabbed my key from my handbag. What was I about to find? ‘Jack, we need to talk, but not now. You need to take Penelope back. Please help keep Caleb safe.’

I tried the front door. It opened. This was still my house, my door, my key, although the entire world had changed around them. And despite the apparent war-zone my place was just as I left it. Everything smelled of smoke, but ironically, we would have been far safer here than at Jack’s.

I rested my handbag on the kitchen bench. There was that strip of wallpaper Harmony had peeled off. My home phone registered twenty-seven missed calls.

At the rear of the house, despite closed windows, Caleb’s bedroom and the kitchen were covered with a fine layer of ashes and soot. The note I had left him before we fled had blown towards the door. In his manga drawings on the walls, Penelope’s yellow and pink hair was as ash stained as the real Penelope. He drew her so often. Was it love? Would she help him?

At least clearing these rooms was something useful I could do. Through Caleb’s window, smoke was a heavy cloud hanging in our backyard. Our old manna gum still leaned, a guardian, over the edge of our property. The ground was grey and black, the creek bed dry. Between me and the town, the Retirement Home had at least been spared. Blackened eucalypt limbs stretched, ranks of immobile soldiers, away through the smoke hiding the abandoned miner’s hut where Caleb used to play.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I was filthy. Ashy. I needed a shower. On my way to the bathroom, I plugged my mobile phone into a portable charger I kept on my bedside table and, almost immediately, it rang.

‘Phoebe? It’s Stephen. Are you there?’

‘I’m here.’ My voice sounded dull, even to me.