this house of grief, by helen garner
Tuesday, February 17th, 2015
The water in the glass he sipped from trembled; but still he gave off that little buzz of glamour peculiar to the Australian tradie
Crop-haired and wiry in her dark blue uniform, a huge diver’s watch on her wrist, Senior Constable Rebecca Caskey of the Search and Rescue Squad stood in the witness stand with her hands clasped loosely behind her. Something in her easy posture reminded me of nurses I had seen at work: women of few words, unflappable, alert and calm.
His responses were so inadequate to the gravity of the situation that it hurt to look at him.
Oh, how bleak and windswept it seems to women, the landscape of what some men call friendship.
