Christmas Where They Belong. Marion Lennox

the windows while you clear the yard,’ she said. Taping the windows was important. Heat could blast them inwards. Tape gave them an extra degree of strength and they wouldn’t shatter if they broke.

      ‘Wool clothes first, though,’ she said, hauling a pile out of her bottom bedroom drawer, along with torches, wool caps and water bottles. Also a small fire extinguisher. The drawer had been set up years ago for the contingency of waking to fire. Efficiency plus.

      Was it possible to still love a woman for her plan-making?

      ‘I hope these extinguishers haven’t perished,’ she said, pulling a wool cap on her head and shoving her hair up into it. It was made of thick wool, way too big. ‘Ugh. What do you think?’

      ‘Cute.’

      ‘Oi, we’re not thinking cute.’ But her eyes smiled at him.

      ‘Hard not to. Woolly caps have always been a turn-on.’

      ‘And I love a man in flannels.’ She tossed him a shirt. ‘You’ve been working out.’

      ‘You noticed?’

      ‘I noticed all night.’ She even managed a grin. ‘But it’s time to stop noticing. Cover that six-pack, boy.’

      ‘Yes, ma’am.’ But he’d fielded the shirt while he was checking the fire map app on his phone, and what he saw made any thought of smiling back impossible.

      She saw his face, grabbed the phone and her eyes widened. ‘Rob...’ And, for the first time, he saw fear. ‘Oh, my...Rob, it’s all around us. With this wind...’

      ‘We can do this,’ he said. ‘We have the bunker.’ His hands gripped her shoulders. Steadied her. ‘Julie, you came up here for the teddies and the wall-hanging. Anything else?’

      ‘Their...clothes. At least...at least some. And...’

      She faltered, but he knew what she wanted to say. Their smell. Their presence. The last place they’d been.

      He might not be able to save that for her, but he’d sure as hell try.

      ‘And their fire engines,’ he added, reverting, with difficulty, to the practical. ‘Let’s make that priority one. Hopefully, the pits are still clear.’

      The pits were a fallback position, as well as the bunker. They’d built this house with love, but with clear acceptance that the Australian bush was designed to burn. Many native trees didn’t regenerate without fire to crack their seeds. Fire was natural, and over generations even inevitable, so if you lived in the bush you hoped for the best and prepared for the worst. Accordingly, they’d built with care, insured the house to the hilt and didn’t keep precious things here.

      Except the memories of their boys. How did you keep something like that safe? How did you keep memories in fire pits?

      They’d do their best. The pits were a series of holes behind the house, fenced off but easily accessed. Dirt dug from them was still heaped beside them, a method used by those who’d lived in the bush for generations. If you wanted to keep something safe, you buried it: put belongings inside watertight cases; put the cases in the pit; piled the dirt on top.

      ‘Get that shirt on,’ Julie growled, moving on with the efficiency she’d been born with. She cast a long regretful look at Rob’s six-pack and then sighed and hauled on her sensible pants. ‘Moving on... We knew we’d have to, Rob, and now’s the time. Clearing the yard’s the biggie. Let’s go.’

      * * *

      The moment they walked out of the house they knew they were in desperate trouble. The heat took their breath away. It hurt to breathe.

      The wind was frightening. It was full of dry leaf litter, blasting against their faces—a portent of things to come. If these leaves were filled with fire... She felt fear deep in her gut. The maps she’d just seen were explicit. This place was going to burn.

      She wanted to bury her face in Rob’s shoulder and block this out. She wanted to forget, like last night, amazingly, had let her forget.

      But last night was last night. Over.

      Concentrate on the list. On her dot-points.

      ‘Windows, pits, shovel, go,’ Rob said and seized her firmly by the shoulders and kissed her, hard and fast. Making a mockery of her determination that last night was over. ‘We can do this, Jules. You’ve put a lot of work into that fire plan. It’d be a shame if we didn’t make it work.’

      They could, she thought as she headed for the shutters. They could make the fire plan work.

      And maybe, after last night... Maybe...

      Too soon. Think of it later. Fire first.

      * * *

      She fixed the windows—fast—then checked the pits. They were overgrown but the mounds of dirt were still loose enough for her to shovel. She could bury things with ease.

      She headed inside, grabbed a couple of cases and headed into the boys’ room.

      And she lost her breath all over again.

      She’d figured yesterday that Rob must have hired someone to clean this place on a regular basis. If it had been left solely to her, this house would be a dusty mess. She’d walked away and actively tried to forget.

      But now, standing at their bedroom door, it was as if she’d just walked in for the first time. Rob would be carrying the boys behind her. Jiggling them, making them laugh.

      Two and a half years old. Blond and blue-eyed scamps. Miniature versions of Rob himself.

      They’d been sound asleep when the road gave way, then killed in an instant, the back of the car crushed as it rolled to the bottom of a gully. The doctors had told her death would have been instant.

      But they were right here. She could just tug back the bedding and Rob would carry them in.

      Or not.

      ‘Aiden,’ she murmured. ‘Christopher.’