LITMIR.BIZ

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      Grace felt the husky edge to his voice all the way to her toes. And all the places in between.

      She straightened her clothes, finger-combed her hair, adjusted her glasses. ‘I have to go.’

      Brent nodded as he watched her reach for the doorknob. ‘It was … nice … seeing you again, Grace,’ he murmured. His chest bubbled with absurd laughter at the irony of his understatement.

      Grace’s hand stilled in mid-twist. ‘Yes. You too.’

      Then she opened the door and walked out without looking back.

      ‘I hate you,’ Natasha said as the plane touched down at Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport six weeks later.

      Grace sighed. ‘Yes. I got that.’

      They’d been over and over her decision to move them all back to Melbourne. She wasn’t about to have the same conversation in front of a couple of hundred strangers.

      ‘I love Jayden. He loves me. How could you rip us apart like this?’

      Grace looked into Tash’s tear-stained face. Her heavily kohled eyes, the same colour as her hair, looked raccoonlike as her mascara ran. The twinkle of a shiny stone chip in her niece’s previously perfect nose winked cheerfully amidst all the teenage angst.

      Somehow, it managed to look even more ridiculous.

      Grace was sorely tempted to roll her eyes and tell her niece to stop being so melodramatic. That being in love at the grand old age of fifteen was absurd and, contrary to popular romantic myths, the world would not end.

       Even though she’d been a scant few years older and had, in actual fact, felt exactly like the world was going to end when she’d walked away from the only man she’d ever loved.

      But she just looked at Tash and said, ‘If he truly loves you, he’ll want the best for you. As do I. And this is the best thing for all of us right now.’

      She wanted to say, Do you think I want this? Do you think I want to uproot myself and my career and sell my lovely house I slaved countless hours to pay off and leave my friends and a job that I love? Do you think it was my plan to upend my entire life to accommodate two orphans? So I could live with a pissed-off teenager and an emotionally fragile little boy?

       Do you think I wanted my sister to die?

      But she didn’t.

      ‘Look,’ said Benji, sitting on his haunches in the window seat, his nose pressed to the glass, ‘we’re here, Tash. We’re here.’

      Natasha, mouth open and about to let loose what Grace felt was no doubt another embittered teenage diatribe, turned to her brother, scrubbing at her face and forcing a smile on her face. ‘Yep, Benji.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Grandma will be waiting for us and all the cousins.’

      And in that instant Grace’s heart melted. Behind all that horrible teenage surliness and you-don’t-understand-me façade was a really great kid. Whose whole carefree existence had come to an end in a crash of twisted metal.

      She sucked in a breath and reminded herself to be patient.

      Grace felt unaccountably emotional as they walked up the sky bridge into the terminal to be greeted by her entire extended family. The Perry clan—her parents and eight siblings and assorted progeny—surged forward and Grace felt as if she’d come home.

      After fleeing Melbourne twenty years ago she hadn’t expected to feel such a strong sense of homecoming. She’d happily made her life away from it all. And it had been a very good life. One that she’d been more than a little reluctant to leave behind.

      But the events of the last eighteen months had been climactic and Grace felt like she’d been slowly sinking in quicksand.

      And it was now up to her neck.

      It felt good to know her family were throwing her a lifeline.

      ‘Welcome home, darling,’ her mother said, wrapping her in a tea-rose hug. The scent of her childhood.

      ‘Mum,’ she said, hugging back, holding on tight.

      Her mother had aged so much since Julie’s death. For a woman with ten kids she’d always been remarkably spry. Full of energy and lust for life. Grace had constantly marvelled at how she did it—goodness, she herself was exhausted just trying to keep track of two!

      But Trish Perry was greyer now, more pensive, less energetic. The sparkle in her eyes had been replaced by shadow. The spring in her step had disappeared completely.

      And the same for her father. They were just … less.

      Grace stood back to let her parents hug their grandchildren. A lump rose in her throat as a tear slid from behind her mother’s closed lids. A spike of guilt lanced her. Had it been wrong for her to take the two most tangible connections to her sister so far away?

      But Natasha had desperately wanted to get away from Melbourne. Sure, she’d made a song and dance about always having wanted to live in the Sunshine State but no one had bought that. They’d known that she had wanted to get far away from the memories.

      And, in the end, they’d all agreed that it might be for the best.

      How were any of them to know it had been an unmitigated disaster?

      ‘Come on,’ Trish said over the general din, wiping at the tear before disentangling herself, all mother-of-ten businesslike again. ‘Let’s get you all home. I’ve made roast lamb, your favourite, Benj, and for you, young lady …’ Trish ruffled Tash’s hair ‘… I made chocolate crackles.’

      Grace tensed and waited for Tash to primp her hair back into place or scoff at her grandmother’s offering. The way she had when Grace had made a batch the week the kids had come to live with her—after a particularly harrowing night shift—because she’d known that they were her niece’s favourite.

      Tash’s vehement ‘You’re not her’ had been cutting and Grace had been walking on eggshells ever since.

      ‘Cool. My favourite,’ Tash said.

      Grace expelled a breath. Teenagers!

      The next couple of weeks were crazy busy. Grace re-enrolled the kids in the school they’d been in prior to moving to Queensland—the school she herself had attended a million moons ago—and spent a small fortune on books and uniforms and all the assorted paraphernalia.

      The school was local to the Perry family home, and was also attended by the current generation of Perry children. None of Grace’s siblings had flown too far from the nest, all setting up house within a ten-kilometre radius of the family home and sending their kids to the same school they’d attended.

      She had been the only black sheep.

      With the kids settled, Grace went house-hunting. Her parents wanted her to continue to stay with them and she was happy to until she found somewhere else. But Grace had been independent for too long to move back home at the grand age of thirty-nine.

      Her brothers and sisters may have been happy to stay close but Grace had always wanted more. And while she was grateful to have the amazing support of her family after doing the whole mother thing alone, she needed her space too.

      Her parents’ home was just too chaotic—even more so than it had been growing up—with thirty grandchildren from babies through to teenagers coming and going at all hours of the day and night.

      Grace had missed the love and laughter but not the sheer noise of it all. She’d forgotten how loud and busy it always was. And how everyone was in everyone else’s business.

      That was something Grace hadn’t missed.

      In short, she needed privacy. A place that was quiet. Still. A place that was hers.

      It had been tempting to look at real estate on the other side of the city,

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