Morning light. Litter everywhere. Fences to the right and a wide concrete drain to the left. He slowed, looked both ways, took a deep breath and shoved through Nan’s squealing back gate into the long grass of her yard. Golden, their three-legged dog, barked angrily and ran at them. ‘Let me down,’ Olive said, and Golden whined in a happy way. Ben let Olive down gently. She kneeled. Golden licked her face, then ran across the yard like a maniac, doing circuits around the clothesline, past the tumbledown chicken pen and the old, white car wreck that Dad had brought home when he was seventeen. ‘Shh! Shhhhhh!’ Ben said to Golden, trying to calm her. He pushed the gate shut and walked up to the house. Peeling paint. Light-blue fibro. He climbed onto the timber back veranda, avoiding the rotten stairs. He knocked quietly and heard the familiar squeak of Nan getting up from her armchair. Then the shuffle of slippers on carpet before her silhouette appeared behind the sheer white curtain.
