‘Take a moment now to visualise yourself floating in an endless sea. Be at ease in the calm water, then observe the waves as they rise to swell and crash around you, feel the push and pull of the water and know that life is not meant to be still, that you are part of a vast and ever-changing ocean. Entrust yourselves to the waves.’ She pauses again. ‘For our last few moments, come into your body and simply breathe.’

And though I am sitting still and my eyes are closed, inside I am like a cartoon character who has thrust a finger into a live power point and become electrified. I’ve never thought about life in this way. My father taught me the value of pragmatism, practicality, the rigid inevitability of forward motion, the pointlessness of introspection or resisting what is established. Move on, move forward, fix and maintain. Control.

But what I hear now is that life’s movement is something more organic than that, messier, more beautiful. The world and everything in it rises and falls and changes and grows, even as I sit and breathe. And I can’t control that. And I am only responsible for some of what I can control. And it is possible to feel at peace knowing that.

This, at least, is how I understand her words: I can control what I eat for breakfast, how many hours I study, how I vote, what I say. I can exercise. I can show up again for this class. But I cannot make my brother grow up, my father answer the phone or my husband come home and love me. I can keep my hands on the wheel today, but I cannot undo Skye’s death. I cannot rewrite the past or be certain about the future. But I can choose to fully be in this moment of this life. A thought that fills me with fear and delight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Monday 24 February 1975

Abby

With only one year of uni under my belt – six years ago – I feel like a foreigner setting foot on campus. The students I pass on the footpath that leads to the Great Court are younger than me, and cooler. For all my attention to books and stationery, the logistics of leaving and returning to my home, I hadn’t thought enough about how I should dress. In my defence, I suspect neither the girl with the perfect flicks, zigzag-striped skirt, Levi’s t-shirt and clogs nor the boy with the blond surf hair, maroon flares and thongs had to wrangle three kids out of the house before coming here, or is thinking about whether their husband is about to file for a divorce. And I’m certain they aren’t starting their year with an undeclared crime in their past. As I think this, I catch a waft of dope, watch the guy walking in front of me slip one hand into the back jeans pocket of the man he’s with. So, maybe other people aren’t living by the letter of the law, but I’d bet none of them wakes in the night remembering the time they left a dead woman in the dirt.