She was right—the food did take a long time. First the smoking rocks were tipped back into the pit. Then Ned’s second cousin emerged from the house with a lamb shoulder, a pork shoulder, a pile of beef ribs. He wrapped them in hessian and placed them on the rocks, then covered the hole with a large sheet that had been dragged through the river. Heavy sacks were placed over this sheet, and soil was kicked over the sacks, sealing the heat in. For five hours the meat steamed underground, five hours of further drinking, carousing, occasional resting. At one point some men began throwing hay bales at each other. Someone tried to chop down one of the lone gums and snapped his axe handle in half, and was lucky the splintered end didn’t blind him as it rebounded. By the time the food was ready it was dark. Dirt and cloth were dragged off the pit, and they slipped the tender meat off hot bones beside spot fires burning through thick grass meant for dairy cows.

The whole time Ned sipped slowly at his beer, untethered from the revelry around him. Still feeling the heat of her gaze on his face. Replaying their encounter, the boldness in her voice. Wondering if he’d disappointed her. Wondering what he wanted.

A week later he knocked on her father’s door and asked if he could come calling for tea at a later date. She pushed into the hallway, asking what was wrong with right now. The same look on her face: the same bold test. Half a year later, they married. It never felt to Ned like a decision he made consciously. It just came up to him, palmed his shoulder, pulled his wrist.

~

Three days after their wedding they were standing at the base of Liffey Falls, at the brisk death of winter, watching an airborne river thrash its way earthward. The water tumbled through high ridges, crowded with the princes of the island’s wetter wildernesses: blackheart sassafras, dappled leatherwoods, contortions of mossy myrtles. Giant stringybarks rose above them all, their gum-topped crowns fighting for space in the clouds. The forest loomed, wet-dark and thickly green in the morning dew, and through the ancient roots of its trees the Liffey ran and broke and fell to splash the boots of the gazing newlyweds.