When the car hits a pothole in the road I startle, I must have passed out. I tend to do that on days where I allow myself to remember, to feel. It takes a physical toll. My stomach rumbles and I glance down at my phone, it’s close to 3pm. We have been driving for almost an hour. Where the hell are we? Almost like reading my mind, I feel Jesse’s eyes on me.

“Welcome back, Meadow,” a teasing voice says from beside me. He pulls over, parking the car on the side of a dirt road. I sit up and look around, still half dazed before I realise where we are. “Bring your coat, we need to walk the rest of the way.”

“Wait, Jesse! It’s trespassing …” I whisper-shout, even though no one is around.

Ahead of us a long dirt road winds through the scattered gum trees, with a little man-made track to the right. The type farmers would use to access paddocks or graze cattle in a drought. Rolling hills line the horizon and the tree line continues off the roadside, scattering through the paddocks that surround us. I’m home. Memories flash through my mind.

“Higher, Daddy, higher,” I giggle. Clinging with all my strength to the ropes of the tyre swing. Looking out over the rolling countryside, I feel like I’m flying. “One more push then I really need to go to work, Meadow,” he says, as he pulls the swing back before pushing me forward. The rush has me squealing. With each swing I try to see beyond the horizon, as if the higher the swing could take me, the further I could see. “See you tomorrow, darling,” Dad calls as he walks over to his car, “I should be home for dinner.”

I pull myself out of one of the last memories with my dad; my final happy memory with him. Scrambling out of the car and shrugging on my coat, Jesse has already turned right, walking up the track that follows the boundary of my childhood farm. From where the car is parked the house is only five hundred metres straight ahead. Though you can’t see it through the trees. I jog to catch up to him as he climbs over a gate into the paddock, which sits behind the house.

“It might not even be there anymore,” I whisper, more to myself than to him.

But what if it is? What if the one place that holds so many memories is still sitting there? My body begins to shake and despite the cold, my hands are clammy. This is too much, I’m too vulnerable at this moment. Flashbacks come flooding back of the countless sunrises and sunsets, I have watched from the very secret spot Jesse is now taking me back to.