‘I’m sorry, Mom. It’s been back for a while. I still spend so much time fighting it.’

‘I’m sorry, honey. I love you so much.’

I can hear her voice on the other end of the line, so far away, the creak of tears. My own eyes flood.

‘I love you too. And it’s good to be with Grandma. We dock tomorrow.’

‘I can’t believe it. After all these years, she’s finally going to be back.’

‘I know. And I nearly ruined it.’

‘You didn’t. You know she wouldn’t have gone without you. Part of the reason she went is to take you. She thought it might help.’

It is hard to talk, my throat is so tight. I think about Grandma’s Steinbeck. There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do.

‘Has it helped?’

I nod, then remember that she can’t see me.

‘Yes,’ I say. It feels good to be telling the truth.

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 33

At dinner there is an announcement over the loudspeaker. We will be going through the heads the following morning around seven am and docking in Sydney by seven-thirty. Passengers are expected to disembark by eight-thirty. Suitcases need to be outside the cabins by six. Hannah and I go back to our cabin to pack, and I notice for the first time that she looks a little better; it’s only been a few days, but there is colour in her cheeks again, some shine in her hair. I have been so busy worrying about her I’ve hardly thought about arriving, but as I think back over the letters Fred and I have exchanged I feel the nerves come on. When we started corresponding again he was cross with me. He accused me of doing some sort of disappearing act, said he couldn’t believe I didn’t at least come back when Mum and Dad were sick, when Dad and then Mum died.

I had my clinic then, I tried to explain, and we had a mortgage, the kids’ college educations to save for. I didn’t tell him how terrified I was. How I’d run away from the past, and it made me feel sick to think of facing it again. Dad died quickly and we spoke on the phone before he passed away. He never said much, but when he went into the hospice they put him on high doses of morphine, and he grew quite talkative, though not a lot of it made sense. We spoke a week before he died and he asked me if I’d fed the poddy calves. I was going to say no—that was Mum’s job—but I just said, ‘Yes, Dad, I have.’ He laughed and caught his breath; laughing winded him so fast.

‘You love the cows, don’t you, Sarah? More’n you love your old dad.’