“In the bedroom Sarah lay next to her son. She could hear movement in the kitchen and wondered if Doug had started preparing dinner. She longed for something sweet to eat. She had not been hungry for days, for weeks, for months, but now, with her son lying near her, she wanted the taste of sugar on her tongue. She would not move though. She didn’t know if she would ever be able to leave his side again.”

“She wondered if she would have tumbled into love with him during the past week if her heart had been whole, if her soul had no been shattered long ago. She rather thought she might have. But a heart and soul could not be mended by the power of the will, she had discovered over seven years. And so she had accepted reality and moved on.”

“What a failure her life had been. Would she have lied to God if she’d had more faith, been more righteous? How could she possibly have a son at her age? And yet, if she had believed all along . . .”

“She would wonder what had hurt her when she found her face wet with tears, and then would wonder how she could have been hurt without knowing it.”

“Sarah wondered what they—the ‘they’ who had taken her child; the ‘they’ or the ‘him’ or the ‘her’—were feeding him.Sometimes a fear dug at her until she acknowledged it: maybe they weren’t feeding him at all.Who would do that? Who would willingly starve a child? Who would hurt her baby? Who would take her baby? Who was this person and why were they allowed to exist?And what would I do to that person if I got the chance?There were days when she lay on the bed and concocted scenarios in her head. She would see herself finding Lockie. She was never really sure of the place. It would be a dark room in a dark house but the location wasn’t important. She would see herself rescuing her child, folding him in her arms and saying his name. Then she would see the person who had taken him.There was never a face, just a body with a blank head, but Sarah would see herself grow until she towered over the person and then she would hit and hit and hit until there was nothing left and all the time she would be screaming, ‘How dare you take my child? How dare you take him?’She had to find him. The desperate need to find him swirled around her body with everything she did. It ate into her soul and sometimes she had to hold on to the kitchen counter to stop herself running out into the road and screaming his name. She wanted to be looking for him all the time. She wanted to leave Sammy and Doug and just keep going until she got to the city and then she wanted to knock on every door across the whole of Sydney until she found her son. But maybe he wasn’t even in Sydney anymore. Maybe he wasn’t even in Australia. Where are you, Lockie? Where are you, where are you, where are you?”

“But for now, she would lie in her husband's arms, her eyes closed and her body still against his, thinking that if this was all she ever had, it would be enough.”