The idea of Australia comes back to us slowly.
Not as an escape. Not as a plan whispered in fear. Just a thought that lingers after Paul receives an email from an old friend, then another from a former colleague who never stopped checking in.
“Home is still there,” Paul says one evening, more to himself than to me.
I don’t answer right away.
Australia had once been a place of beginnings for us, and endings too. Sunlit days, long roads, oceans that made promises feel possible. It was where we learned to love, and where we learned how easily love could be tested.
But now, when I think of it, my chest doesn’t tighten.
It opens.
“What if we go back,” I say finally. “Not to repeat anything. Just to see who we are now… there.”
The children are excited in the simple way children are. Kang
