THE REFUGE
The security door clunked shut. Caged in the porch she looked back through vertical metal bars across the neat suburban garden to her Mazda parked on the nature strip. Vestiges of her former life crammed to its roof: a suitcase and two holdalls stuffed with clothes; bedding, photo albums, all her ID; and the deep-eyed gorilla her boss at the hardware store had gifted her one Christmas. Former boss.
‘Stay! Think of your beautiful home! You raised it from its footings, turned that cattle paddock into acres of gardens,’ Sonia had urged her. Said he was the one who should be leaving.
She could get an AVO.
‘He’s gonna kill me and that bit of paper won’t stop him.’ Neither will her toy gorilla. Clutching her travelling bag she turned into the porch’s gloom and waited for the lock
