She rolls her eyes. “Yes, now.”

My father emerges from the kitchen carrying a large, dark-blue backpack. The kind that costs hundreds of dollars and has a compartment for anything you could possibly think to take with you. I clap my hands over my mouth. I’ve been eyeing this pack up for ages. How did she know?

“Kate might have mentioned something,” Mum says, reading my mind.

“You’re welcome,” Kate’s voice calls out. “Even though I’m still pissed off that you’re going.”

“That’s not all,” Dad says, barely concealing his excitement. “There’s something inside. Open it. Go on. Open it.”

“It’s not something that might get me in trouble with border police, is it?” I hedge, to buy myself time.

“No it’s nothing illegal.” Mum sighs. “More’s the pity.”

The sight of the pack, such an innocuous thing in itself, is my undoing. It represents everything I’ve allowed myself to dream of and hope for since I’d heard those magical words just a couple of short years ago.

You’re in remission.

Immediately afterward, I’d had the overwhelming feeling that I’d been given a second chance for a reason, that I was supposed to do more with my time than sit in an office counting down the hours and living paycheck to paycheck. The most obvious thing I could think of was to travel, explore the world. It gave me something to aim for. So I’d decided to save up and explore the world, with no time limit or concrete plans, just me and my pack, wherever the path took me. But now that dream was swirling down the plughole of the drain that was my life.

With trembling fingers I fiddle with the clips securing the pack until my mother, never overly patient, pushes me aside.

“I’ll do it,” she says. “We’ll be here all night waiting for you.”

She opens the pack and tilts it so I can see inside. At first I think it’s empty, but then I catch a flash of white and realize there is an envelope at the bottom. Inside the envelope, when I open it, is a card.

“Read it out loud,” Mum prompts.

I shake my head. “I don’t think I can.”

“Fine, I will.”

She takes it from me and clears her throat, adopting the same voice she uses in her amateur dramatics theater productions, the voice she’s been told is “powerful” and “commanding.”

Dear Ava, Happy birthday! Thank you for being such a wonderful daughter and making us prouder than we ever thought possible. As our gift to you, here is a flight ticket to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil! Open return, of course, so that you can come home whenever you’re ready (and if travel is not for you and your homecoming is soon, no one will judge you for it). As hard as it will be for us to bid you a (temporary!) goodbye, we wish nothing but for you to have a life of great adventure. While you’re out there, doing what you need to do and making magical memories to last a lifetime, just remember we are here, loving you, and we’ll be first up at that airport gate the moment you get back. Love always, Mum and Dad.