LITMIR.BIZ

      Prologue

      I fell in love with Sam while eating a pie. She was wearing faded jeans,a white t-shirt and a royal blue apron dusted with flour; there was even a dab of flour on the tip of her nose. She was small, fearless, and cute as hell.

      Sam worked at her parents’ Newport Beach bakery on weekends and holidays while completing her nursing degree at the University of Technology in Sydney. Despite a heavy class schedule and long commute, she nonetheless lit up the shop whenever she was behind the front counter. I don’t know where she found the energy.

      Sam grew up a tomboy. As a kid she was shy and quiet, but she never sat still; probably couldn’t. When she wasn’t at school or riding her skateboard, she was cleaning houses or babysitting to earn pocket money; even as a teenager her goal was financial independence. Always smiling and hilariously stubborn, Sam was her father’s daughter through and through. She was raised to love hard work, abhor idleness, and laugh at pain. To her, a busy day is a good day and Panadol is for wimps.

      I can’t imagine what Sam’s father thought when he realised I had a crush on his daughter. I had no interest in university and left school as soon as I could. At thirteen I’d picked up my dad’s old camera and, from that moment on, I knew exactly what my calling was. Three years later I won a surf photography contest for which I received forty dollars and six rolls of film. That’s all that was needed for a cocky Australian teenager to believe he was destined to be the next Max Dupain.

      Whether I was learning my trade in the studio, printing images in a darkroom or out on assignment, almost every day would begin and end on a surfboard. It was no coincidence that my favourite break was directly across the road from the Surfside Pie Shop whenever Sam was working there. Having memorised her schedule I would ride my last wave to the beach and make a beeline for the bakery. I’d order a hot beef and mushroom pie, followed by a custard tart and small talk. Then I would stay to eat my scrumptious purchases – dripping wet in my board shorts, teeth chattering, my feet covered in sand – and chat to Sam for as long as she would put up with me, often till closing time.

      When my shorts were dry and I was feeling especially brave, I would sidle up to Sam and sit next to her on the counter top, grinning like an idiot. Her dad would be baking in the rear, red-faced and furious in the heat of the giant ovens. His bloodshot eyes implied that open flirting would be dangerous – but I soon learned this was largely due to a flour allergy and that, despite his rock-cake exterior, he was actually a cream puff and very sympathetic to young love. I first knew I had a real chance with Sam when she gave me the unsold sausage rolls and lamingtons that would have otherwise been thrown out. At this point my dog, Bundy, loved Sam almost as much as I did.

      Sam was never your average beach girl. When her friends gushed about local gossip, movie stars and Byron Bay, Sam spoke of medical science, books she’d enjoyed and her plans to visit West Africa when she graduated. Apart from being fun and beautiful there was something special about Sam that I found hard to define – though barely five feet in heels, she exuded a quiet strength; I felt energised by her love of life and warmed by her presence. She didn’t always have much to say and never drew attention to herself, but she had an unspoken confidence that made you believe she could do anything she set her mind to. Something I now know to be absolutely true.

      We were both nineteen when we went on our first date. After a drink or two at the Newport Arms Hotel, I worked up the courage to let Sam seize the initiative and invite me to a party at Bilgola Beach. And that was it. Sam was my first, last and only serious girlfriend – I knew I’d found the love of my life.

      Our wedding was simple. Close friends and family squeezed into our backyard around a fancy chuppah that we’d borrowed from a wedding I had photographed a few weeks earlier. Apart from how stunning Sam looked, I can’t forget the incredible flowers and also the giant chocolate mudcake baked by Sam’s dad who, with tears of joy, embraced me as a son. Before the festivities got out of control I surprised my bride by arranging a Maori dance company to perform traditional songs and a haka which, I have to admit, was a bit weird seeing as neither of us were from New Zealand, and yet it was also somehow perfect. Hearing Sam’s delighted laughter made

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