Free Yesterday's Dust by Joy Dettman

don’t know how Mum is going to get through it. Shewas a howling mess last night.’
    â€˜Yes.’ But she’ll put on her lipstick, plait her hair, close up her mind. She’ll survive, Johnny thought.
    Silence then, only the wood cracking, warming the old black stove, already sharing a breath of its heat with the tiny room where a small table stood hard against the one bare wall. Only three kitchen chairs. Space was at a premium. The sink was below a highwindow and beside it, too few cupboards were packed full.
    No room for a refrigerator and the kitchen door, so the door had been removed years ago. The equally small dining room was across the passage. They never dined there. It was Ellie’s room; it was where she sat her visitors when they came for afternoon tea. It was where she read her newspapers and did her crosswords.
    â€˜Annie and Bron arecoming down at twelve. David will leave later. He’ll drive straight through and meet us at the church.’
    â€˜Right.’ Ben still called her Annie. Annie and Bron. Never Bronwyn. Pretty name, Bronwyn. Johnny had named her too, found that name in a book. How Green Is My Valley . At thirteen he’d liked that name. Liked the book too. It was still on the shelf at the old place. He’d read it again.
    Windin the vines moaning. Wind in the wires, adding their low, mournful whistle. John stood and walked to the sink, staring out at the gun-metal sky while rinsing his mug.
    â€˜I’ll have to get down there before two, they said. Have to pick my suit up. You should have hired one, Johnny.’
    â€˜I’ll do okay, Ben.’
    â€˜It’s not as if we’re on the breadline.’
    â€˜You forget, I’ve got a ready-made wardrobe.’
    â€˜Yeah.’Ben stirred the porridge. ‘You’re as bad as Mum, you know. You won’t move on. Burn his clothes. They still stink of him. I don’t know how you can wear them.’
    â€˜Waste not, want not, lad.’
    The words were memory. The smell of porridge bubbling in this kitchen was memory. The small sandy-haired man making porridge was memory.
    Big pots of porridge cooked each morning by Grandpa. Andthere he was,his back turned, still leaning over his little black stove, stirring.
    Get the bowls out, lads. It’s a good brew this morning. It will stick to the stomach like glue .
    The Burton brothers – so different. John tall, thick hair, dark but greying now at the temples, and Ben small and wiry, his sandy hair kept short. Three years separated them. Since their father’s disappearance, Ben had been overflowingwith drive and energy; Johnny was an empty shell.
    He sighed and took two bowls from the cupboard, placing them on the table with the sugar. He took the milk from the fridge as Ben carried his saucepan to the table, ladling the heavy concoction evenly into the bowls.
    â€˜It’s a good brew this morning,’ Ben said with a grin.
    â€˜Stick to the stomach like glue, lad,’ Johnny replied.

mother of the bride

    â€˜My goodness, what a crowd of them,’ Ellie whispered. One glance through the telephone book was enough to prove that Smith was a common name, but Ellie hadn’t expected all of them to be at Bronwyn’s wedding. The Daree Catholic church was full of Smiths and ex-Smiths.
    The Burtons were not so well represented. Only Bessy, her son Mickey,his wife Jenny, and her great-grandmother, old Granny Bourke. Why Bronwyn had asked her, Ellie did not know. Still, there was no understanding her daughter – daughters – and that was a fact. She’d never understood them, not when they were little, and even less now. She never knew what they were going to do next, and she’d found it better not to know sometimes. Like this rushed wedding!
    Anniewas seated in the row behind, with David, and she was wearing black! Johnny was on Ellie’s right. He almost hadn’t made it to the church. They’d