Simon and Julie took a coach trip to Wyndham on the Friday when Sid and his family were to arrive, thinking it best for me to greet them alone. Standing in the airport terminal, I watched them come down the steps of the plane from Darwin. I experienced a moment of disassociation, seeing Sid as a stranger might. He was tall. His dark hair was thick and quite long, and he had a shadowy beard. He was very handsome. Then it was me watching my son. There was something of Will in his bearing, but he was no longer the wild boy we had shepherded through his teenage years. He was a man with a family. I saw them brace as the wall of heat settled around them, then they were there, with excited greetings.
Six-month-old Suzannah, a dimpled, plump, pink bundle, surveyed the terminal from a sling across
