When I swipe the card to unlock our cabin door a few minutes later, my heart is still racing, though not from the run anymore. Grandma’s not there—she must have gone to breakfast without me. I peel off my wet shirt, sports bra and shorts and turn the shower up as hot as it will go.

The scalding water is almost too painful to bear but it stops the shivering, and beneath the showerhead I stretch my calves, quads, neck and shoulders as well as I can in the tiny cubicle. Dinner with the ship’s captain. I think of how glad Grandma will be, and worry about what to wear. I’ve already thought of a way to tell Ash without making it sound like what it was: a flirtation.

I wonder if hearing Grandma’s stories has something to do with this thrill I feel. I want to feel what she felt then. When life was simply lived, not dissected into a thousand pieces. When it was grabbed tight and squeezed because tomorrow you might not be here. The water runs off me and swirls around the drain, taking strands of my hair with it. The steam is thick in the room, the mirror fogged. I turn off the shower and dry myself with the towel, squeeze the water from my hair. The room isn’t cold but I’m shivering. With anticipation, I think. With something slippery, like possibility.

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 12

A month isn’t long to arrange a wedding, but it wasn’t impossible, or even uncommon then. There were many fast marriages before soldiers—Australian and American—went overseas to fight. Mum asked if I was certain this was what I wanted.

‘Yes.’

Dad asked if I was pregnant.

‘No.’

‘Well, you make your bed, you lie in it.’

‘I said I’m not pregnant, Dad.’

‘That’s enough lip from you.’