I found them in the yard, Piper sitting on a patch of grass, Everly squatted nearby, gesturing to a pink flower.

“Rose,” she said, running one hand over the petal. “This is a rose.”

As she turned back to face Piper, she caught a glimpse of me and stopped. Her arms folded across her chest like she was protecting herself, and she shifted closer to my daughter. As if I’d ever hurt her. As if I ever could.

I snapped at her in the kitchen.

I took a deep breath, slow. There was something I needed to say. A sentence that was going to be hard, but that I needed to speak, that I needed her to hear.

“Everly, I’m sorry,” I said, and the words I thought would be so hard flowed out easily, like a wave onto the shore. “I’m sorry for how I acted to you, and how I acted in front of Piper. I shouldn’t have snapped. It was wrong, and it won’t happen again.”

“Well, it better not.” She scooped Piper in her arms and straightened, her head high as she met my gaze with those storm-blue eyes of hers. “Do you want to talk about it?”

It was a challenge and an invitation, all at once.

I didn’t want to talk about it.

I never had, not when the policeman asked me to give my report, not when Bella’s mother begged me to tell her what I’d seen. Each time I was asked, the memory had flashed in my mind in vivid technicolour. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t tell anyone what we’d been through.

If the memory playing in my head hurt me so damn badly, why would I want others to see it? Why expose them to this brutal, painful picture when I could protect them from it instead?

Because that was what I’d always done.

Protect people.

The right thing.

“I’m a pretty good listener,” Everly said, a small smile at the corner of her lips. “You can tell me if you want.”

“Okay,” I said, stuffing my hands in my pockets. “Okay.”

* * *

Once more, I pushed the pram, this time along a path by the lake a few minutes from the recovery centre. Still, blue water stretched out into the distance, rolling green hills dancing across it on the other side.

Everly didn’t push me to speak. She kept pace, even when I was walking too quickly. Even when I was slow. It was as if she were determined to match whatever speed I was ready to go at, and I couldn’t help but feel the idea applied to the situation in more ways than one.

But why was I ready now? Why was she the one?

Perhaps it was because she hadn’t recognised me that day. She didn’t want to fix me, like all the others had.

Or was it just that something was different about her? She’d been teaching me so much about looking after this new life—now I needed to teach her about my death.

We reached a wooden bench, and I checked Piper’s eyes were still closed before slowing the pram to a stop, sinking down onto the weathered timber seat. It creaked as it took my weight, and I closed my eyes for a moment.

Everly sat by my side, her eyes on the lake in front of us. Three black swans swam a few feet away, gracefully dancing through the water.

“Almost two years ago, there was a … a terrorist attack in Sydney.” The words didn’t sound as if they belonged to me. The voice was distant, level. Devoid of any emotion. “At a café just off Oxford St. The—”

“The Three Swallows,” she said slowly, still not meeting my gaze.

“Yes.” Huh. I thought she didn’t watch the news. “And that uh … that explosion. I was there.” I pressed my lips together. Dry. They were so goddamn dry. “We all were.”

And we were. The people I loved most were all at that café: my dad, Bella, our unborn child. The only person missing was Mack, because he hadn’t been able to get the Friday off work. At the time, he’d sent me a text saying he was an unlucky bugger.

He was the luckiest bugger I knew.

“We were meeting to discuss last-minute wedding plans. The funny thing was, we didn’t have a booking and there were no seats. But my wife really wanted to go to that café, said she’d been there a few times with someone from—” I stopped. Someone from her obstetrician’s office. “She’d been there with a friend, and I always tried to give her everything she wanted. I saw an empty table, and I begged the waiter to let us have it until the people who were supposed to be there arrived. I still remember the reserved sign in the middle of the table with the name ‘Anderson’ on it …” I gave a bitter laugh, shaking my head. “We weren’t supposed to be there. But we were, and it was all my fault.”

“Who’s we?” She didn’t argue. Didn’t say it wasn’t me. Her eyes were still on the lake, and it helped. It helped me feel as if this was a confession, not a conversation.

“Bella and me. She was the—” Dry. My throat was so dry. The woman I loved. The mother of my child. The words halted on the tip of my tongue every time I went to say them, and I shook my head, letting it go. I didn’t need to tell her that. Not when the only people we’d told about our unborn child were my dad and Giselle. “Bella and I eloped in Vegas a year earlier, and my dad had always insisted that while he was okay with what we’d done, he wanted us to have a real ceremony. Like he and Mum had. Honest love needs honest commitment in front of family and friends. That was what he’d said.” I could still hear him saying those words, clear as day. “He asked Bella to tell him all about the wedding, only I’d heard the story a thousand times. So I decided to go to the—”

The bar.

The bar.

But the missing word didn’t come out. It climbed my throat like reflux, shooting up and then dropping away to nothing, leaving an acidic taste in my mouth.

“Honest love.” Everly reached out her hand and rested it on my leg, even though her eyes were still fixed on the horizon. “I like that. Honest love.”

“Honest love,” I repeated, biting down on my lip. “You know the rest of the story. The bomb went off. I survived. They …” Cold, hard facts. You’re reciting the news. Something that happened to somebody else. “Bella died. Dad lived, but the shrapnel was so deep, so treacherous, that they had to amputate both his legs. His mind couldn’t be … it couldn’t be operated on. It couldn’t be fixed. And now, he can’t remove himself from the café that day.”

“God.” Everly’s voice cracked over the word. “That’s …”

“Just don’t,” I blurted out. “Just don’t say that’s horrible, or you’re sorry, or you wish there was something you could do.” I placed my hand over hers, giving it a small squeeze so she knew I wasn’t angry. “They’re all nice things people say, but they mean jack shit to me. They don’t change what happened. They don’t make it better.”

“But you know what? Sometimes words aren’t about healing.” Everly looked at my hand, still over hers, and a brief flicker of something passed over her face. For one long moment, it seemed as if she were in agony, as if someone was ripping her soul in two.

She muttered something under her breath, then turned to face me. “They’re about letting someone else know that you would fix it if you could. That you’re there if they’d like to talk.”

“Maybe,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure I agreed. I rested back against the chair. “Anyway, so that’s my father. He’s been in care because of the episodes. Most of the time, he just thinks he’s stuck at the café, but you can talk him out of it eventually. Whenever they give him too many sedatives, though, he drifts further and further away.”

I looked at the lake. One of the swans waddled up the bank, its gait surprisingly awkward for such a graceful creature. “Dad’ll sleep all day now. Most of tomorrow as well. He’s always been like that with drugs. His body just doesn’t cope with them.”

“And what about you?” Everly asked.

“Me?” I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I meant you you. How are you after all that?” she said, a soft smile on her lips.

“I’m …” I searched my mind for the answer. I couldn’t watch the news. I punched bags in a garage in the middle of the night.

I was scared I was going to forget.

I was so goddamn scared of that.

“I … when it happened, I was a wreck. I stayed home, got drunk, did anything and everything I could to make it all go away.” I paused, looking at Piper. “I made choices I … well, I did things I shouldn’t have. One night, I was drunk. My friend Mack had dragged me out, and I … I slept with someone because she … for a moment, I thought she was …” My teeth gritted together.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to say—”

“Bella,” I finished, nodding. “She looked like Bella, and I just needed to forget. I just needed to pretend things were okay.” I ground my jaw. It sounded pathetic, saying it aloud.

“Did it work?” Everly asked drily, and I breathed out in relief. She wasn’t judging me. Not mad.

“No. But that’s how I have Piper. And now, I guess things are getting … better.” I nodded, slow. “I’ve been dealing with it. I did the denial, the anger, the bargaining and the depression … all the stages of grief, I passed. But the thing is, there’s this sixth stage they don’t talk about.”

“Oh yeah?” She arched an eyebrow. “And what is this stage, Dr Cameron?”

I nudged her ribs, and she laughed. “It’s fear. Fear of forgetting. Fear of moving on when the person you loved could not.”

Everly reached for my hand and linked her fingers through it.

That simple action spoke of all the words I needed.

But it wasn’t until we were in the car on the way home that I truly realised what I’d said.

Loved.

Fear of moving on when the person you loved could not.

Past tense.