I grab a bottled water and see the kid step forward as the teens move away, he slides the freezer lid open and leans inside. His face pinched in conflicted concentration.

An overweight figure calls from the shop front.

"Hurry up son I'm double parked!"

"Coming."

The kid makes his choice, reaching deep.

I usher him ahead of me toward the counter. "You go first mate."

Giving me a nod, he scuttles up to the woman who holds out her scanning device to receive him.

He pays with a handful of coin then hovers near the door to unveil the lurid ice-cream, eyes glowing with reverential awe.

He cups his left hand protectively around the lolly-embedded head and leaves the shop.

A packet of gum to the right of the counter catches my eye. As a I pay, and pocket it, the screaming starts.

Out on Darby Street, Bubble O'Bill is bleeding into bitumen, the double-parked car is revving.

"Dad, I dropped it. Dad!"

The revving becomes more insistent.

The kid crumples over the melted mess. Keening.

For a split second I consider lowering myself to the curb to join him. To witness even the smallest of losses, triggers pain in me these days. Some things in life, regardless of our punitive powerlessness, need to be met with sheer reactive protest.

I've been told by The Psych, that 'raw reaction' is to be expected, is necessary, in the beginning.

"But from there", she always emphasises, "we need to move forward into acceptance."

I try, but I can't get through more than a couple of minutes without my gut kicking and screaming its discontent, my head swims with the shape of our lost life.

The life I want. It's been three years.

I flick a couple of gum pellets into my mouth and walk through the weighted warmth of Darby Street.

I almost change course to avoid the surf shop, but push on, heart thudding.

I see us here, me and my little grommet, rummaging through the sales rack for treasures. We never found a decent wetsuit, but a couple of times we did get lucky with t-shirts and boardies.

He would've been 14 now, well out of the kid's category and into the teens; would have cost me a fortune.

My throat constricts.

The Psych calls it The Gap, the space that's created as a result of trauma. The distance between the life we thought we were going to have, and the one we are now living.

According to her The Gap should be narrowing. It's not. I've clearly missed some vital step in the psychological protocol. I embody this ever-widening wound, an unwieldy ferocious rage.

It jabs at me from deep inside, too big for my body. It kicks its presence onto every relationship, every activity, every thought.

I lean against the window of the surf shop and guzzle half the bottle of water, an attempt to wash away the toxic torment. I can't forgive.

On the morning of Saturday, October 24th, 2020, Sally and I sat on the back step, sipping coffee, our usual pre-breakfast ritual, as we talked about the day ahead.

"I should be home by lunchtime," I'd told her. "Tell Ben I'll take him to the skate ramp later, but no surfing today. I checked it out yesterday arvo. Huge swell, the low's still hanging around off the coast. It's way too dangerous, even for me."

She'd agreed.

He was still alive when they hauled him in. He died in the ambulance on the way to John Hunter.

I moved out of the house a week later, awash with grief, drowning in helpless murderous fury.

We don't talk now, Sally and I.

She's written to explain what happened; she knew I'd said the surf was dangerous, but Ben had pleaded with her.

She'd told him he could have a "quick surf", and then they'd go home. She'd walked up to the café.

Why did she have his board in the van if we'd agreed he wouldn't be surfing? Why was a coffee more important than watching Ben? These thoughts have taken up permanent residence in my head, they circle and cycle, constantly pushing me to the cusp of insanity.

If it had been a totally random accident, truly unavoidable, it would be different.

This should never have happened.

"But it did. It did happen," The Psych keeps reminding me.

Sally's coping better than I am, from what I hear. How is that possible?

I wander into Cooks Hill Books and stare around blankly.

Is it true that I once spent many blissful hours here? Was it me trawling the shelves, neck cricked with intent, folded to the floor 'pre-reading' a potential purchase, Ben beside me, sprawled out with a comic ... I walk out.

I pass Civic Park, the old Tower Cinema, Momo. All is familiar, yet utterly foreign.

The Gap divides me, dissects me, carves me up. I lean backwards into the mirage of my wonderful life as Ben's father and Sally's husband.

The kaleidoscope of joys; the sea, our local café, the skate park, our family holidays, my childhood habit of devouring books and chocolate pretzels on lazy summer afternoons - a pleasure I'd passed onto Ben.

Other people can do it, I'm told. Other people can move on. This only serves to remind me of my fundamental flaw. I can't loosen my grip on the life I knew. The life I loved. I turn and retrace my path, back to my rented room in Parry Street.

The only thing I know as I pass the corner shop, and look to the broken stick and melted remains, is that I must keep trying.