“The place is nice,” Lisa said, her gaze wandering over the feature wall behind Cora.

“Yeah, I like it.”

She really did. The 1950s duplex held an inexplicable charm for Cora, even with the old lady next door who had smelt strongly of cats when she’d said hello. The backyard wasn’t huge, but existed. It had two bedrooms and one bathroom, and best of all, Cora could smell the ocean.

“Has it had renovations?” Lisa asked.

“Yeah, just last year. All the rooms.”

“I love the floorboards.”

Cora hummed her agreement. “I want to get a dog.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, why?”

“They need so much…time.”

“I know… I want to adopt an older one. I read the other day that any dog over ten rarely gets adopted.”

“You’re too nice.”

“Am not. I want company here.” Cora shrugged.

“What if you want to travel?”

“I don’t really have any plans for that right now.” It was enough just trying to sort her life out.

“But…”

“What?”

“Well, I thought now you might look at getting involved in some of those overseas organisations you talked about so much at uni.”

Cora stared at her. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

Which was the truth. The fact that her whole life had just started to open up before her again hadn’t completely registered. But surely she couldn’t. Cora had her job at the hospital, and the programme…

The sound of a large vehicle filtered through the lounge room window.

Lisa bounced. “Things are coming!”

It took them hours. Cora had paid extra to have people help them assemble everything, something she’d hesitated on but was grateful for when she watched boxes of her bed, a book shelf, side tables, dining table, and more get carried through. Lisa had insisted part of the fun was assembling the furniture, but Cora had strong memories of wanting to set fire to her bed at university as she’d struggled to follow the directions.

There was so much stuff, and it took Cora’s breath away.

Long after the helpers left, Lisa and Cora stayed up putting the new sheets on the bed, filling the kitchen drawers with new equipment and generally trying to make everything look a bit cosier.

They sat back on the kitchen floor with their beers and looked around.

“I’m exhausted.” Cora groaned.

“I know… And you still have to get things like a TV. And I need to buy you some rugs and paintings. It still looks…”

“Sparse.”

“Yeah.” Lisa held her bottle out. “We’ll make you a home, don’t worry.”

Cora clinked her bottle against Lisa’s.

Cora had a house. A house that was going to be filled with her things. One to echo memories and thoughts and times that she’d built, not that felt built around her. “I need to arrange with Alec to get some of my things.”