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‘paradox’. And I like all its alternative words except ‘absurdity’. I don’t understand how that one fits.
    Everyone said Dad was talented. Mum said he could turn his hand to anything. We had a pond down the back. Dad had dug it close to the creek, with a little channel that fed it fresh water and a spillover to stop it flooding. In the middle was a fountain made entirely of scrap metal that he had scrounged from the Bunter and Davis recycling centre. Paul Bunter and Jacko Davis were Dad’s mates and would give him anything he wanted. In return, Dad did all their electrics. Dad wasn’t certified. He just knew how to do it on his own.
    Dad and I got along better than Dad and Sarah. Probably because Sarah was a girly girl and I was a tomboy. And Dad never said much about anything and Sarah was a chatterbox. So Dad and I never argued, never got on each other’s nerves, never got in each other’s way. Mum said we swam in the same direction. I guess she was right about that. I never really thought about how comfortable I was around Dad until I had to fit in with Bill. Bill’s a loner. People were surprised when he took me in.
    I have a beautiful new dictionary. The Chambers English Dictionary. It has one thousand, seven hundred and ninety-two pages. I found this great word: ‘solivagant’. It means ‘wandering alone’. I was looking for a word to describe Dad, but I’m not sure solivagant is the one. But it’s a great word.
    Mavis bought me the dictionary for my birthday. She says her husband (who is really Papa) told her to buy it. Mavis says her husband is quite sure I’m brilliant. I know this is really Papa telling her these things because Mavis has a room-mate, Betsy Groot, and Betsy told me that Mavis has never been married. I suppose Nana has always known this, too.
    â€˜Thanks for the dictionary.’
    â€˜You’re welcome, sport,’ says Papa. He is sitting in the rocker on the front veranda. He looks out of place at the Mavis Ornstein Home for the Elderly. He looks too young.
    â€˜I know,’ he says, when I tell him, ‘but I’m old. I’ll be eighty this November, just behind your grandmother.’
    â€˜You’re not old, Papa. You’re fifty.’
    â€˜No, Tom, I was fifty. Looks can be deceiving when you’re dead.’
    Sometimes Papa and I sit on the veranda all afternoon. Some of the old people say hi to him as they walk past, some don’t. I guess some of them recognise him from his photo. Some don’t see either one of us. Papa calls them the sad cases.
    Every hour or so, he checks on Nana. They never chat or anything. Nana has imaginary conversations with him, rather than the real thing. But I think she knows. Little things give her away. For example, she never sits on the rocker if Papa is already there. She always walks around him, not through him (like the sad cases do). And it would be just like her to ignore Papa for thirty years as punishment for leaving her so young. Mum and Dad are lucky they are together. I wonder if they have found Sarah.
    Sarah is three years younger than me. Well, in a way she is four years younger now. It’s a bit confusing. When she drowned she was three years younger and that is over a year ago. Anyway, in between Sarah and me, Mum had a miscarriage. Twins. I wish I knew if it was two boys, two girls, or one of each.
    I often keep an eye out, just in case they’re swimming around with the Sarah catfish. Jonah says I am getting ahead of myself when I worry about such things. He says to let it go.
    I have never understood the let-it-go advice. What does it mean? Let what go? And how do you let something go if you’re not even sure you’re holding on to it? And anyway, what’s so wrong with holding on?
    Papa says ‘letting go’ is new-age bullshit.
    I’m wandering back to Jonah’s house in the dark, when I hear voices up ahead. The