I know it was my fault, love. I know it was my stubbornness that killed you. I know I should have listened. I know you’d still be here today if I wasn’t so hung up on stupid traditions. And I know that no number of Hail Marys will ever make up for it. They won’t make up for that and they won’t make up for any of my sins.

But you know what you could have done? You could have hung on. You could have held on for only a few minutes more. Or you could have carried your Ventolin with you, right there in your front bloody pocket where you always kept a ballpoint pen. Or stored one in the glovebox. Or any one of a million places.

You could have fought for it. You could have let them save you. They came, Frank! They came to rescue us. And I thought everything was all right. I thought, well this will be a real lesson to us, won’t it? I thought, imagine what the kids will think when we tell them what almost happened.

But no. They couldn’t save you, because you were already gone.

Do you know I always carry a Ventolin in my handbag now? Ever since that day . . . I put one in there and everywhere I go, I make sure it’s there. I constantly double-check. That’s silly, isn’t it? It’s too late now. I’m continuously checking the bushfire app and the weather app too. It was the wind that got us. It caused the fire to suddenly change direction and jump the freeway.

And anyway, I’m making excuses, trying to find a way to place the blame somewhere else. But we all know the truth, don’t we?

None of that was what mattered. What mattered was that I made us drive up that freeway.

There’s no other way of looking at it.

I killed you.

*

Mimi

Before she’d even opened her eyes, she could feel her skull pulsating as though it was trying to burst its way out of her head. Her eyelids fluttered and she tried to swallow but her tongue was furry and her throat was dry. What the hell had she done to herself?

The previous night came back to Mimi in flashes. She and Leesa giggling like schoolgirls on the daybed, finishing off the bottle of champagne before moving on to the gin, Leesa pouring the drinks without a measure. They would have been double shots for sure. ‘No need to measure, hon, no one’s driving anywhere.’

Mimi rolled over and the pulsating skull turned into a heavy pounding. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. She couldn’t remember the rest of the night. How did she get home? Where was Tara? Did she come home too? No, she had a sleepover at Leesa’s. When did she get home?