‘If I don’t ace the exams I probably won’t get the clinical internship I want. Paediatrics is super competitive.’

Grandma pointed out the window then, changing the subject. ‘I think I see it. There, that huge one. That’s our ship.’

It was so big sitting there at the wharf it looked fake. It dwarfed everything else; the other boats looked like small toys beside the gleaming white beast.

‘A floating mall,’ Ash said, and I kicked the back of his seat. He had made plenty of comments about the environmental ethics of cruises, and at home I’d agreed, but I didn’t want to seem ungrateful now that I was here.

Ash hugged us both goodbye at the passenger terminal, where we joined a snaking line of tourists in fanny packs and bright t-shirts. We were different from them, I’d decided. We had a purpose to our journey. While Grandma got her passports out—she had both, US and Australian—Ash put his hand on my cheek. I pushed his sunglasses up to his forehead. In his pupils were tiny reflections of me.

‘Will you miss me?’ I asked.

‘More than you know.’

He kissed me. I watched him walk away, turning back to wave when he stepped off the kerb. I had forgotten to say that I’d miss him too.

•

I move the food around on my plate, cut it into smaller pieces. I find the salt shaker and smother the two teaspoons of egg. Laughter explodes at a table near us, a woman raises her voice to be heard over the cackles of the others at her table. The room is broken up with railings and drapes but it is still cavernous, ornate like a cheesy Italian restaurant where the waiters sing.

Most people in the dining room are in Grandma’s age bracket but there are also families with small children, wide-hipped mothers wiping maple-flavoured syrup from the hands of their wriggling toddlers, counting down the minutes until they can send them to kids club. Middle-aged couples who spend their days by the Calypso Reef pool, skin already peeling from sunburn, drinking mimosas and bloody marys with breakfast. Teenagers moving in small packs, carrying plastic soda cups and avoiding their parents’ table. The only demographic missing seems to be mine.

My friends are spending their spring breaks backpacking in South America or snowboarding in Vermont. Even drinking margaritas in Cancun. But this is Grandma’s trip home. She said she could use my help: getting around, the suitcases, the travel. But I suspect there’s something more. I watch her lay her napkin carefully on her lap. The way she eyes mine. She has always had these perfect manners; she takes her fork in her left hand, her knife in her right. In this way she carves every little bite, even the bacon, and brings it to her mouth in dainty, careful portions.