A PHOTOGRAPH SITS on the mantle in my father’s study. It has been there a long time, and I never paid attention to it until recently. It is a sepia-toned photograph of a woman in her early fifties with short brown hair. She wears a white dress. It was evidently taken at a party: she sits in an armchair with her hands clasped together, a glass of wine beside her. Her expression is unsmiling but gives the impression of warmth and intelligence. The woman is Anne Staniforth Carter. She is an aunt I never met, an aunt who died six years before I was born. 

At the beginning of my research, I knew little about Anne. I knew that my aunt had been married to an Anglican reverend. I knew she was Dad’s half-sibling, from my grandfather Staniforth Ricketson’s first marriage. I knew that she lived in the country at Mount Macedon. The final thing I knew for certain: my aunt died a sad and violent death. She perished on 16 February 1983, the night of the Ash Wednesday bushfires. Her husband, the Reverend Bill Carter, drove away from their cottage without her. In his panic, he left his wife behind and saved himself as the flames closed in.