Rosa lived in Northcote, in a double-storey red brick house. It had two white iron balconies facing the street on the upper level, and a wider white balcony on the lower level. They made the house look friendly, as if the upstairs balconies were the house’s eyes and the lower balcony a smile.
I was nervous. I couldn’t say anything as Rosa showed me around. I hoped I wasn’t gawking. It was the kind of house I imagined for myself in the long night hours as I listened to the rats scurrying outside my bedroom. It wasn’t just the sparkling white tiles and honey-coloured wooden cabinets in the kitchen, or even the bare, pale wooden floors of the family room with its minimal furniture, and wood fire. It wasn’t the thick ivory carpets of the bedrooms upstairs, or the same honey glowing wood of th
