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tomorrow night.’
    She stood up and he drove off. She started towards her front door but paused to watch the car brake at the corner of the street then swing right. She saw Joe’s head turn her way just before the car disappeared behind the wall of the railway bridge. She stood there a moment longer, then took in and released a deep breath.
    She and Joe had worked together for almost two years and knew each other so well that they hardly needed to speak while on a case. Whichever one of them was treating the patients that day, the other knew what equipment they wanted and when to fetch it. They were great friends too; best friends, in her mind. She could talk about anything with him. She remembered a night when they’d been sent to stand by at a quieter north shore station and had taken the opportunity for a lie-down in the bunk room. She’d lain there in the dark, knowing he was in the bed just across from her, that she could reach out and touch him if she wanted. They’d told ghost stories like a couple of kids and when the job phone rang she’d hardly been able to speak for fits of giggles.
    She was glad he’d been there today. His efforts to try to cut them free had made her feel less of a victim. It was a childish wish, but she hoped they’d be able to stay working together forever.
    Inside the house she checked her watch again then ran up the stairs. She almost tripped over Felise’s one-eyed mostly bald toy gorilla and hoiked it with her toe into Kristi’s room, then in her own room she stripped off her uniform and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. She pushed her bare feet into runners then hurried back downstairs and out the front door.
    The school bell rang when she was still a block away, and she moved faster. She only slowed once the group of mothers and younger children standing around the gate came into view.
    Kristi was talking to another young mum. Beside her Felise clung to the fence, her red sneakers jammed into the weldmesh, her hands grasping the top of a metal post, her gaze fixed on the wide double doors leading into the school building. She wasn’t starting school until next year but couldn’t wait. Mondays were a high point in her life because they came to the hallowed buildings to collect their six-year-old neighbour, Max Saleeba. As a stream of children burst out of the school Felise stood up on her toes, neck straining, thin arms like sticks below the sleeves of her shirt. Kristi put her hand on the back of her daughter’s neck and leaned down to speak to her, and Lauren’s throat swelled. Times like this she imagined what it would be like to still have their brother Brendan around, how he’d have loved to play with Felise and would have watched with such pride as she grew.
    She had done absolutely the right thing in court that morning.
    As she reached them, the object of Felise’s urgent staring came into view. With his real uniform and his school hat and lunchbox and backpack, Max represented everything grown-up and important to Felise. Unable to contain her excitement any longer she jumped down from the fence and ran to the gate. Kristi watched with a smile on her face, a smile that grew when she caught sight of Lauren.
    ‘Let you off early, did they?’ Kristi said.
    ‘Something like that.’
    Kristi came closer. ‘Have you been crying?’
    Lauren shrugged and smiled and looked away at Felise who had Max by the hand and was dragging him over. ‘We can go now,’ Felise announced. ‘Hi, Aunty Lolly.’
    ‘Hi, Flea.’ Lauren smoothed Felise’s thin hair back from her narrow forehead. The top of the scar that ran down her chest was visible in the open neck of the pink ‘My Little Pony’ shirt.
    They turned for home. The bells on Kristi’s embroidered slippers jingled and Lauren could smell the essential oil of whatever that she liked to dab on herself. It used to annoy her, but now it was the smell of home. Max and Felise walked in front, Felise with Max’s pack on her back,