‘No way.’

By the time Dave found his mother late in the day, she was on her friend Heidi’s front porch, hands wrapped around a large mug of tea and eyeing off an opened packet of chocolate coated biscuits.

The weather almost seemed to mock them now. The storm clouds of the past twenty-four hours had already swept inland and in their wake, Beacon Bay had been left with a clear sky and a setting sun that highlighted the litter and destruction everywhere.

Irony of ironies, Heidi’s little cottage had weathered the storm quite well, except that her laundry door had been blown open, knocking her washing machine askew and sending the clothes trolley flying to the bottom of the garden with pegs scattered hither and yon.

Her cottage’s exterior walls and windows were splattered with mud and plastered with leaves, but that was also the state of every other house in the Bay. And now, from the porch, the women were tiredly surveying their battered little village and the backdrop of denuded rainforest that surrounded it.

The magnificent trees had been totally stripped of leaves and the understory was littered with a massive tangle of uprooted trunks, fallen vines and broken branches. Like everywhere else in the Bay, Heidi’s street was a sorry mess of smashed fences and twisted and dangling guttering. Fallen powerlines snaked along the footpath, their poles leaning at crazy angles and a couple of houses had lost huge sheets of roofing iron that now lay mangled in the yards.

At the bottom of the street, the soccer fields where Lisa’s sons had spent hundreds of happy hours, were a flooded sea of sludgy brown water. And as well as all of this, Lisa and Heidi were still recovering from the dreadful disaster they’d endured during the night.

It had been close to midnight when they’d retired to their bedrooms. Outside it had been calm, but they’d known this was the cyclone’s eye passing over them. Soon the winds would pick up again, coming from the opposite direction, fiercer than ever.

They hadn’t really been expecting to sleep, but were hoping for a little rest, when suddenly the winds erupted to an even higher intensity and then, with absolutely no warning, there’d been an explosive, deafening crash on the roof.

It had scared the bejesus out of them, but Lisa had guessed straightaway what had happened. Rolf had warned her about leaving that huge Milky pine standing so close to the house. It was the one and only pre-cyclone gamble she’d taken.

The sickening crash was the possibility she’d both feared and prayed to be spared. Her punishment for being stubborn. Mother Nature had the last laugh.

The tree had come down, crashing onto her roof, its massive trunk and heavy branches cracking the metal sheeting and timber trusses and creating a huge, gaping hole that instantly filled the house with pelting rain and a roaring wind as loud as an express train in a tunnel.

The two women had spent the rest of the night in Lisa’s bedroom, huddled in terror, together with the cat, Juno. Keeping the door tightly closed, with a chest of drawers wedged against it, and only torchlight for comfort, they’d listened in horror as the insides of Lisa’s beautiful home had been trashed.

It was, without question, the worst night of Lisa’s life. When daylight arrived at around the same time as the storm eased, she’d opened the bedroom door and had broken down completely when she’d discovered the full extent of the damage.

Eventually, when she’d run out of tears, she’d wanted to start straight away on the clean-up, but she’d barely begun when a council building inspector had arrived and declared the house uninhabitable. She’d been ordered to evacuate.

Lisa had been quite sure her heart was literally breaking as she’d grabbed clothes from her wardrobe and toiletries from the ensuite, along with the evacuation kit she’d advised so many others to pack, but had never dreamed she would actually need for herself.

Despite her devastation, however, in the humbling hours since the storm had abated, Lisa had been schooling herself to be grateful for small mercies. Beacon Bay was a shattered town with many damaged homes and no electricity, and this situation might last for some time. But the pump station had generators, so the town at least had a water supply, and Heidi had offered her a spare bedroom.

Heidi also had candles and a battery powered lamp and she was still able to boil water and heat up soup on her gas cooktop. And Lisa, knowing that she had to conserve her phone’s battery, had sent a blanket text message to the townsfolk she was most concerned about, asking them to let her know if they needed help.

She hadn’t expected immediate answers, but quite a few people had responded to tell her they were okay and were looking out for their neighbours. It was the best she could manage for now.

At least, according to official reports, the only person with serious injury in their little bayside village had been a Danish backpacker who’d foolishly gone out in the middle of the cyclone to film herself for an Instagram reel. She’d scored a broken leg and a knock to the head, so the local ABC had reported.

Around noon today, they’d all heard the clatter-clatter-chop of a helicopter whirring overhead and then landing on the beach. It had flown the woman to hospital in Townsville and the good news was that she should be fine.

Then, just half an hour ago, the SES had managed to clear enough debris from the road leading into town to allow them to bring through their trucks laden with tarpaulins to cover damaged roofs. In fact, they’d already started on this task.

So now, Lisa and Heidi were coming to terms with this new, smashed and imperfect world. They’d been through a harrowing night and a miserable day, but at sunset, Lisa was finally starting to feel calmer. Soon, the hole in her roof would be covered and she’d assured herself that she and the good folk of Beacon Bay would all work through this ordeal together.

But now, here was Dave, arriving on Heidi’s doorstep and delivering his gob-smacking announcement.

‘No way!’ Lisa cried for the second time. ‘Tell me you’re joking.’

Her son’s glare in response to this was mutinous. ‘Yeah, Mum, sure. I’ve had nothing better to do today than make up sick jokes.’

‘Sorry, Dave, but I don’t want –’ Lisa stopped, tried again. ‘I don’t need your father here. It’s stopped raining and first thing tomorrow morning I’ll have a tarp over the roof. After that, I can wait till my insurance company sends me a suitable builder.’

‘Mum, that’s crazy. Dad’s a highly suitable builder.’

‘No, Dave. Dragging your father back into my life is what’s crazy.’

He gave a tired shake of his head. His hair was thick and rust coloured, so like his father’s, although much longer, reaching his shoulders, so that he had to tie it back when he was working. ‘Look, I’ve already spoken to Northcover.’

Lisa choked back a gasp.

‘You’re still insured with them, aren’t you?’

‘Y-yes.’

‘Yeah, well, I also have them for the café, and I was a bit cheeky and asked if Dad was still on their books. I knew he’s done plenty of work for them in the past, mostly after cyclones.’

‘But – but –’ This new assertiveness was a side to Dave that Lisa had never seen. She felt bulldozed. She wondered if Rolf felt the same way.

‘The Northcover guy I spoke to couldn’t see a problem,’ Dave said next. ‘Dad’s still registered, he has a reputation as a top class builder and with so much damage everywhere, they won’t knock him back. They’re going to be hard-pressed to find enough tradies to cover all the jobs.’

With a touch of drama now, he threw up his hands. ‘Think about it, Mum. You’ve got one of the best builders in the district to mend your roof. You’d be crazy not to use him.’

Lisa knew that on one level, Dave’s proposal made good sense. But she and Rolf were finished. Over. Their parting had been neither smooth nor painless, and they’d said their goodbyes. End of story. Lisa had been managing so well on her own.

Okay, so she’d neglected to hire a tree lopper and she might not be able to mend a shattered rooftop, but she was by no means a helpless female. Perhaps more importantly, while her ex might have kept up his registration and was still on Northcover’s books, he could well be finished with the building trade.

Except, Lisa did know that he’d built himself a beautiful house up in the mountains near Lake Tinaroo. She hadn’t been able to avoid seeing the article about that house in Country Life. Half of Beacon Bay’s population had waved the magazine under her nose, and that had been a bitter enough pill to swallow without everyone also rubbing in all the other news about Rolf’s roaring success as an author.

Rolf.

For some inexplicable reason, it upset her to say his name out loud, but even contemplating it in silence hurt. Hurt in complicated ways Lisa had no wish to explore.

How on earth could she cope if he was actually here in the Bay? Staying here for weeks on end and working on her house?

More importantly, where would he stay? Accommodation was bound to be scarce. Lisa wasn’t even sure where she might stay until her home was liveable. It was a bit much to expect Heidi to put her up for weeks on end.

And how often would she have to see Rolf? How much would they need to discuss?

Surely it was all too hard?

Meanwhile, of course, Dave was still waiting on Heidi’s front steps.

Lisa tried to be reasonable. ‘You should have spoken to me before you rang your father.’

‘Yeah, right. And we both know how that would have gone.’

Dave had a point. She would have pleaded with him not to make the call. ‘I would have at least asked you to wait until we had a better idea of the situation here.’

‘Well, the situation is pretty clear. You have a huge hole in your roof that invited a cyclone to do its worst inside your home.’

            ‘Yes.’ Thinking of her sodden lounge suite, the ruined paintings and shattered, mud-splattered dining area, Lisa drew a deep breath, sat straighter. ‘Look, I know you’re trying to help, Dave – and thanks. It was thoughtful of you to try to support me you when you have your café to worry about.’ With a wincing smile, she couldn’t help adding, ‘But I still wished you’d checked with me first.’

 Her son shrugged. ‘If it’s any comfort, Dad predicted that you wouldn’t want him.’

Lisa could almost hear what Rolf might have said.

‘Should I tell him not to bother?’ Dave asked.

Yes, of course. She swallowed the tight lump in her throat. ‘I—I guess not.’

Heidi had been discreetly silent during this conversation, but as they watched Dave head back down the street, carefully dodging fallen power lines, she spoke. ‘Lisa, honey, I know this is none of my business, and I know the whole Rolf thing is like a land mine for you. But at a time like this, most people would give their eye teeth to have their very own builder on hand.’

Lisa pulled a face. ‘I’m not most people.’

Heidi’s smile wavered and Lisa could almost hear her unasked question – Who are you then?

In that moment, Lisa wasn’t sure she knew the answer.