you mind...if we stay?’ Amina faltered and Julie hauled herself together even more. Amina had lost her home. She didn’t know where her husband was and Julie knew she was fearful that he’d have been on the road trying to reach her. What was Julie fearful about? Nothing. Rob was safe, and even that shouldn’t matter.
But it did. She looked at his smoke-stained face, his bloodshot eyes, his grin that she knew was assumed—she knew this man and she knew he was feeling as bleak as she was, but he was trying his best to cheer them up—and she thought: no matter what we’ve been through, we have been through it.
I know this man. The feeling was solid, a rock in a shifting world. Even if being together hurt so much she couldn’t bear it, he still felt part of her.
‘Of course you can stay.’ She struggled to sound normal, struggled to sound like a friendly neighbour welcoming a friend. ‘For as long as you like.’
‘For as long as we must,’ Rob amended. ‘Amina, the roads will be blocked. There’s no phone reception. I checked and the transmission towers are down.’ He hesitated and looked suddenly nervous. ‘When...when’s your baby due?’
‘Not for another four weeks. Henry works in the mines, two weeks on, two weeks off, but he’s done six weeks in a row so he can get a long leave for the baby. He was flying in last night. He’ll be frantic. I have to get a message to him.’
‘I don’t think we can do that,’ Rob told her. ‘The phones are out and the road is cut by fallen timber. It’s over an hour’s walk at the best of times down to the highway and frankly it’s not safe to try. Burned trees will still be falling. I don’t think I can walk in this heat and smoke.’
‘I wouldn’t want you to, but Henry...’
‘He’ll have stopped at the road blocks. He’ll be forced to wait until the roads are cleared, but the worst of the fire’s over. You’ll see him soon.’
‘But if the fire comes back...’
‘It won’t,’ Rob told her. ‘Even if there’s a wind change, there’s nothing left to burn.’
‘But this house...’
‘Is a fortress,’ Julie told her. ‘It’s the house that Rob built. No fire dare challenge it.’
‘He’s amazing,’ Amina managed as Rob headed out to do another mop and bucket round—they’d need to keep checking for hours, if not days. ‘He’s just...a hero.’
‘He is.’
‘You’re so lucky...’ And then Amina faltered, remembering. ‘I mean... I can’t...’
‘I am lucky,’ Julie told her. ‘And yes, Rob’s a hero.’ And he was. Not her hero but a hero. ‘But for now...for now, let’s investigate the basics. We need to make this house liveable. It’s Christmas tomorrow. Surely we can do something to celebrate.’
‘But my Henry...’
‘He’ll come,’ Julie said stoutly. ‘And when he does, we need to have Christmas waiting for him.’
* * *
Rob made his way slowly round the house, inspecting everything. Every spark, every smouldering leaf or twig copped a mopful of water, but the threat was easing.
The smoke was easing a little. He could almost breathe.
He could almost think.
He’d saved Danny.
It should feel good and it did. He should feel lucky and he did. Strangely, though, he felt more than that. It was like a huge grey weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
Somehow he’d saved Danny. Danny would grow into a man because of what he’d achieved.
It didn’t make the twins’ death any easier to comprehend but somehow the knot of rage and desolation inside him had loosened a little.
Was it also because he’d held Julie last night? Lost himself in her body?
Julie.
‘I wish she’d been able to save him, too,’ he said out loud. Nothing and no one answered. It was like he was on Mars.
But Julie was here, right inside the door. And Amina and the kid he’d saved.
If he hadn’t come, Julie might not have even made it to the bunker. Her eyes said maybe that wouldn’t matter. Sometimes her eyes looked dead already.
How to fix that? How to break through?
He hadn’t been able to four years ago. What was different now?
For the last four years he’d missed her with an ache in his gut that had never subsided. He’d learned to live with it. He’d even learned to have fun despite it, dating a couple of women this year, putting out tentative feelers, seeing if he could get back to some semblance of life. For his overtures to Julie had been met with blank rebuttal and there’d been nothing he could do to break through.
Had he tried hard enough? He hadn’t, he conceded, because he’d known it was hopeless. He was part of her tragedy and she had to move on.
He’d accepted his marriage was over in everything but name.
So why had he come back here now? Was it really to save two fire engines? Or was it because he’d guessed Julie would be here?
One last hope...
If so, it had been subconscious, acting against the advice of his logic, his shrink, his new-found determination to look forward, to try and live.
But the thing was...Julie was here. She was here now, and it wasn’t just the bleak, dead Julie. He could make this Julie smile again. He could reach her.
But every time he did, she closed off again.
No matter. She was still in there, in that house, and he wielded his mop with extra vigour because of it. His Julie was still Julie. She was behind layers of protection so deep he’d need a battering ram to knock them down, but hey, he’d saved a kid and his house had withstood a firestorm.
All he needed now was a battering ram and hope.
And a miracle?
Miracles were possible. They’d had two today. Why not hope for another?
* * *
The house was hot, stuffy and filled with smoke but compared to outside it seemed almost normal. It even felt normal until she hauled back the thick shutters and saw outside.
The once glorious view of the bushland was now devastation.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ Amina whimpered and Julie thought: neither do I. But at least they were safe; Rob was outside in the heat making sure of it. The option of whimpering, too, was out of the question.
She looked at Amina and remembered how she’d felt
