So much death…

Tori was trying desperately to pull herself together, sniffing against his shirt, tugging back. ‘I’m sorry,’ she managed. ‘This is stupid. It was a risk, operating on her. I should have put her down. I should have…’

‘You weren’t to know what you should or shouldn’t have done,’ he said gently. ‘You did your best. That’s all anyone can ask.’

‘No, but she was wild. She’s been through so much.’

‘You didn’t add to that. Tori, you had to give her every chance.’

‘But was I operating for me?’ she demanded, sounding desperate. She’d managed to pull back now and was wiping her hand furiously across her cheeks. ‘I named her! How stupid was that?’

‘You told me you didn’t.’

‘I told everyone I didn’t. All the volunteers I’ve worked with. The nurses. The drivers. The firefighters who brought animals in. I told them we can’t afford to get attached. There are so many. If we get attached we’ll go crazy. Let’s do our best for every individual animal and let’s stay dispassionate.’

There was nothing dispassionate about Tori. She looked wild. Her face was blotched from weeping. The spade she was working with was covered with ashes and dirt. Her hands were filthy and she’d wiped her hands across her sodden face.

She looked like someone who’d just emerged from this burned-out forest-a fire victim herself-and something inside him felt her pain. Or felt more than that. It hurt that she was hurting, and it hurt a lot.

He wanted to hug her again-badly-but she was past hugging. She had her arms folded across her breasts in an age-old gesture of defence. Trying to stop an agony that was unstoppable?

This was much more than the death of one koala, he thought, as bad as that was. There were levels to this pain that he couldn’t begin to understand.

‘Keep yourself to yourself.’ His mother’s words sounded through the years. ‘Don’t get involved-you’ll only get hurt.’