Settlers' Creek by Carl Nixon

the last two weeks.
    Box took a deep breath and slowly let it out. He looked up and down the street again and then up at the concrete sky. Finally he forced his legs to move. He walked over the road and in through the gate, then slowly up the front path towards the house, dreading what he would find inside.

    The first thing Box noticed when he opened his front door was the smell of baking. He stood on the veranda with the handle of the door still clasped in his scarred builder’s hand, and breathed in the warm aroma of scones. Scones and afghan biscuits, fresh coffee as well. The house smelt like a café.
    He stood, sniffing like a suspicious dog at the long hallway that ran down the middle of the old villa. There was a beehive-murmur, an unfamiliar voice coming from the kitchen at the other end. The smells and the sound of the voice made him doubt that he was in the right house. And then he felt ridiculous. He was just stalling, simply too afraid to go in, afraid of what came next.
    Heather came out of her bedroom. She saw him and froze and then her pale freckled face collapsed and she exploded into tears.
    That’s what it took to propel Box over the threshold: his daughter’s crumpled face, her raw unmasked need. It broke his heart to see it. He went to her and wrapped both his arms around her as she sobbed and shook. Heather was sixteen. The crown of her head was a missing piece of jigsaw that fitted neatly beneath his chin. Her forehead pressed against his chest and he cupped the back of her head with one hand. She gasped for air.
    ‘It’s okay, love. It’s going to be okay.’
    He sounded trite and ridiculous even to himself. But what else was there for him to say?
    And then Liz was in the hallway. Box didn’t see what room she came out of, she was just there. He met her gaze, then looked away, shocked. Stricken, that was the word.She looked stricken, and even worse. He lifted one arm and made room for her. Liz was as slim as she’d been when he first met her, and only slightly taller than Heather. There was more than enough of Box to encompass them both.
    They huddled together in the no man’s land of the hallway. Box somehow stayed dry eyed. Liz and Heather were sobbing, struggling for breath through tears and snot and mucus; the bodily discharge of grief, which was wiped unnoticed onto Box’s sweatshirt.
    So this is it now, he thought. This is all that’s left, contained here in my arms. Box felt like the survivor of a devastating earthquake. He was a refugee who’d been left with only those things that he could hold.
    Box couldn’t judge time any more. They might have stood that way for five minutes, or maybe, probably, it was much longer. Since that phone call from Liz, whole minutes seemed to flicker by. Others stalled, and ground to a halt. Now all he knew was this warm sobbing huddle, primitive and timeless.
    At last he felt Liz pull gently back. She mopped her eyes with the back of her sleeve.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
    ‘What for?’
    ‘I wasn’t here.’
    ‘It’s not your fault, Box. Just bad timing.’
    She gave him a struggling lopsided smile for which he was painfully grateful. Her dark brown eyes were bloodshot and her face was puffy with crying. Although it probably wasn’t true, Box thought she looked as though she had shed weight; overnight, slim and fit had become gaunt.
    A stranger’s face appeared from the kitchen at the end of the hallway. Box saw a short chubby man in a darksuit. His face was full, with hanging cheeks and a puffed bottom lip like a beautiful girl’s. Dark spiky hair grew low on his forehead.
    ‘Sorry, I’ll give you a minute.’ He disappeared back into the kitchen.
    ‘Who’s that?’
    ‘The funeral director. I needed to start organising things.’
    ‘Right.’
    Of course. There would be a thousand details to arrange. Liz probably already had a list. He suddenly felt like someone who, while out for an evening walk, had stumbled upon the wreckage of a