Essie got up and leaned heavily with one hand on the arm of her chair.

‘That’s not the end,’ said Chloe.

‘Not at all, darling. But I’m tired and I need a drink. That’s enough for one day.’ She used my shoulder as another support as she made her way to the kitchen.

‘Wait, I’ll get your drink,’ I said, and darted past Essie. ‘It’s okay, Essie, I’ll bring it to you.’

‘I can manage. I want a strong one.’

‘I’ll make it strong. I know how you like it.’

She leaned on the counter, and her smile and her eyes looked so tired. Chloe appeared behind her.

‘It’s nearly two,’ I said.

‘Yep, I’ve got work. Essie, seriously, you’re amazing.’ Chloe’s words made Essie stand taller. ‘You coming, Han?’

‘I might stay. Essie?’

‘No, you go,’ she said, and took the glass from my hands.

‘But I can’t go without . . . I want to know the rest.’

‘And I promise I’ll tell you, but on my terms, Hannah. It’s my story. You go with your friend now.’

I felt dismissed. Chloe put her arm around me. ‘Come on, you can walk me to the bar.’

‘Look after her,’ Essie told Chloe. They both looked at me as if I were breakable.

‘I’m fine!’

They smiled and Chloe rested her head on my shoulder for a second before we walked towards the front door.

‘Wish I wasn’t working,’ said Chloe. ‘You’re lucky to have a night to chill out at home, Han. A shift at the bar wipes me out.’

‘You’re young to be working in a bar,’ Essie said. ‘Mind you, I was young too, wasn’t I?’

They looked at each other as if they’d shared something and I wanted to shout out how stupid that was but the words in my head made me sound like a brat. Chloe loved that bar. She was just trying to suck up to Essie, but why?

‘What will you be doing at home, Hannah?’ said Essie.

‘Um, The Notebook’s on, I’ll probably watch that.’

‘Would I like it?’

‘I reckon you would, Essie.’ Chloe was giggling but it seemed like she felt something genuine for my grandmother. ‘It’s pretty romantic. Anyway, good to meet you. You’re just like Hannah described, only better.’

‘You too,’ said Essie. ‘And I’ll see you very soon, I hope.’

 

When we turned onto Beaconsfield Parade I tried to steer us down towards the beach path. I needed the wide open stretch of bay before I had to head home on the tram to get ready for tonight.

‘Stay up this way,’ said Chloe. She looped her finger into the pocket of my shorts and put her other arm around me. ‘It stinks down there.’

‘To you, maybe. I like it. I can’t believe you’d rather walk next to the traffic.’

‘I can’t believe you’d rather watch turds bobbing up and down on the waves.’ She laughed and I did too, trying to make myself feel close to her again. It felt like it was my fault that we kept drifting apart, and it was the least I could do considering what tonight was.

 

When I got home, Sam had his feet on the coffee table, his dirty sports socks big and puffy like oven mitts. He was eating jam on toast and watching kids’ TV.

‘Where’s Mum? And why are you watching cartoons?’

‘I suppose you’re so mature now you’ve got a date or whatever it is.’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘I know him, remember?’

‘Not any more.’

‘He’s still Evan Hatcher, prize dickhead. He only wants to go out with you because he thinks you’re too young and stupid to stop him from doing exactly what he wants.’ He pushed an entire triangle of toast into his mouth and chewed it forcefully.

‘I’m not stupid. How would you know what anyone wants anyway? You’re a selfish prick.’

Sam turned up the volume.

‘And I said where’s Mum?’

‘Bed. She’s been there all day.’

‘Why? What about the potter’s wheel?’

‘She says that’s finished. Look, why don’t you talk to her? I’m not the bloody messenger.’ He gave me daggers again.

‘As if I’ve been able to get near her with you in the way. You’re loving it.’

He calmly gave me the finger. I knew that’s all I would get – he’d never crack, I’d end up in tears and he’d take it as some kind of victory.

Outside Mum’s door was a full cup of tea with milk scum on the top, a cut-up apple, turning brown, and some marmalade on toast curling up like autumn leaves. These were gifts from Sam. I pictured him leaving them there for her.

When I came out of my room hours later, Sam’s untouched gifts were still there. I thought about how that might feel to him. At least he was trying. I hadn’t brought Mum anything, hadn’t said comforting things or asked her if I could help in some way. I felt sick at the thought that the distance between them and me was my fault, not Mum’s or Sam’s.

Sam was still on the sofa, his damp hair and lack of socks evidence of a shower, but everything else the same. Sam muted the TV and sat up as if he’d been waiting for me to come in. ‘Where are you meeting him?’

‘Thought you knew everything.’ I kept busy trying to find things I might need and putting them in my bag: lip balm, purse, keys, mobile; I picked up a book for something to do in case Evan didn’t show up at all.

‘Just tell me, Han. I’m not going to follow you. I’d just feel better if I knew where you were going.’

‘Why would I be interested in making you feel better? You don’t give two shits about me.’ I didn’t like the way he was making me feel even more nervous about the date. But I was confused; he looked deflated. I couldn’t tell if he was setting me up for a fall and I didn’t know how to stop arguing with him.

‘I swear I’m not being an arse this time,’ he said.

‘He said something about a gig, okay?’

‘You don’t sound very excited about it. Why are you even going? Stay here. I’ll order a pizza.’

I didn’t want Sam to see the indecision on my face so I turned into the kitchen. Staying would have been easier. There was an element of the unknown about staying, with our new messed-up family life, but it was an unknown I’d been dealing with so far. What if tonight was a disaster in every way?

Sam turned the volume up. ‘He’s a wanker anyway.’

‘Get lost!’ I stormed towards him, my bag over my shoulder ready to smack him if I had to. ‘And he’s a nicer brother to Chloe than you are to me. Just because you’ve got nothing to do but make cups of tea for Mum since you decided to become Dad, don’t take it out on the rest of us. I’ve got a life, thanks.’

I slammed out of the house in tears. We didn’t get along and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Sam had always hated Chloe. But it wasn’t just that; he hated my taste in music, my clothes – I was used to it – so what did it matter if he didn’t like Evan? I loved Evan. I’d loved him for as long as I could remember. I’d hidden it, even though I could hardly breathe when I was in the same room as him. Now maybe I didn’t have to hide. Maybe it would be the one thing in my life that would work out. Maybe it’d make the other stuff matter less.

 

It was an old tram back to St Kilda, that swayed and jolted all the way down Glenferrie Road. It went past flower shops, hairdressers, houses that sprawled behind tall iron gates; past a football ground and a tennis club, across a railway line and past an old milk bar – all the landmarks Dad had dotted on the map for me a couple of years ago. I hadn’t looked at that map for a long time; the journey was as much a part of me now as any cell in my body.

The tram turned right so the low evening sun hit my window. I closed my eyes and thought of Dad in his hotel. It had only been a few days, but the distance between us seemed a wide and cold place. I had to make myself stop thinking about that pain; I had to stop looking back.

Essie had crossed several oceans on her own at my age; her family had sent her away, and as far as I could tell she’d never gone back home. She’d survived all that, and life in that terrible place, and still the story was unfinished. I couldn’t wait to hear the rest – about having Mum in the convent and how they managed to get out, how they’d ended up in Sydney first of all, like in the painting, and finally in Melbourne. I had no idea how much of Essie’s story Mum knew – maybe she didn’t know the first thing about Essie’s life, and maybe it would bring them together again if she did.

But then I remembered James. What if Mum didn’t know that her father was really someone else? Was that the secret Essie was telling me, and what was I supposed to do with it? There was still so much to know. The thought of being the person who could help fix our messed-up family gave me butterflies. But what if I made things worse?

The road through Balaclava was quiet; the bagel shop Dad had loved to go to was closed. But then I saw some Jewish families walking together, maybe coming back from the synagogue. The men wore hats and their sons wore kippas; girls that didn’t look much older than me were pushing prams, and small children walked obediently next to them. The girls were in long skirts and several of them wore wigs, too.

All of those rituals and rules seemed alien to me. Mum and Dad never talked about religion, except to say that we had to respect everyone else’s right to practise it and try to ignore it ourselves because it was nothing to do with us. But ignoring it didn’t always seem possible.

Essie couldn’t ignore it all those years ago. She’d had to kneel and pray and do everything the nuns had ordered her to do; what she’d wanted for her life hadn’t counted for anything. The injustice of it felt like part of me now, and I wanted so badly to be stronger and less afraid in my life – it seemed like the least I could do for Essie, when she’d survived terrible things and I hadn’t faced a single struggle until Dad left.

I got off the tram in front of the gaping mouth of Mr Moon at Luna Park, and took a long look along the bay towards the Hatchers’ bar where Chloe would still be on her shift. Above the water there were thin clouds that looked like wisps blown across the sky by children with straws.

The buzz of Fitzroy Street trailed behind me as I walked up the side street towards Evan’s place. I was early so I sat cross-legged on the street with my back to the wall, got out my book and read the same sentence over and over again.

‘Hi.’ Evan crouched down in front of me.

‘Hey! Sorry, you scared me.’

Already, our bodies seemed closer than they’d ever been, as if we’d crossed a line. He stood and held out his hand to pull me up.

‘So, hi,’ I said. He smiled like he was thinking about something, and stared into my eyes for the longest time while I died on the spot, desperately trying to think of something to say.

‘Is there anything you feel like doing?’ he said at last.

‘I thought there was a gig.’

‘Yeah, I just checked out the venue and it looks kind of trashy.’

‘That’s okay. I’m not precious, you know.’

‘I’d feel bad taking you there. Really. I thought we could grab some food, go for a walk or something, hang out? Maybe get a coffee and sit on the beach? Is that too lame?’

I tried not to seem too keen but my arms and legs were going crazy with electricity. ‘That sounds perfect.’

‘And the other thing is, I have a terrible hangover.’

‘Oh, well we can do this another time if you want.’

‘No way, I mean, unless you want to?’

‘No,’ I laughed.

Evan looked up. ‘It’s going to be an awesome sky tonight.’

I tilted my head back too. ‘How can you tell?’

Before I knew it he’d flung his arm around me. ‘I’ll tell you later. Come on.’

For about an hour we walked around like that, his hand covering my shoulder, mine nervously on his waist, as we weighed up every type of food venue imaginable, rejecting them for reasons that ranged from the mundane to the obscure. I didn’t care how starving I was as long as this moment never had to end. Walking around like that felt more lovely and real than anything I’d ever done with a boy.

‘Hannah, if you say you don’t mind what we eat one more time I’m going to make us eat sushi.’ He stopped dead in the street and pulled me a bit closer.

‘Please don’t make me choose.’ Our faces were so close I couldn’t concentrate on what I was saying.

‘You hate sushi.’

‘Who said that?’

‘Chloe.’

I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten about how she fitted into this moment too. ‘I don’t hate it exactly. I just . . . Fine! I hate it!’ We both started to laugh. ‘I can’t bloody stand it, I don’t get it, it’s awful and I don’t care if I’m a freak for not getting the incredible joy of raw fish. We’re not having sushi.’ It was as if I’d lifted the lid off and let the real me out.

Evan blocked my path, holding both my arms. ‘So we’re having . . .?’

‘Fish and chips,’ I blurted out, wincing.

‘Hell yes,’ he said, and grabbed my hand to make me jog along a few metres to the same shop where I’d last seen my dad.

 

We sat side by side on the boardwalk. Evan ate great mouthfuls of chips like a kind of hot barbarian. I peeled the batter off my fish so I could plunge my fingers into the steamy flesh and drop scalding pieces of it into my mouth. We spoke in the direction of the bay, rarely looking at each other, our words and laughter carried out onto the waves. It was like talking to someone on the phone but feeling the warmth of their arm next to yours.

‘I can’t believe you chose pie,’ I said.

‘Pies are awesome. I can’t believe you peel the batter off your fish. What’s wrong with pie?’

‘It’s a fish and chip shop. Pies are just there to make the menu longer.’

‘That is some theory. Do you have any other rules I should know about?’

‘Quite a few, actually.’ I risked a glance at him, feeling more relaxed. It was the best I’d felt in weeks, or maybe ever, but that was too terrifying to admit to. ‘But I’m thinking of dropping a few.’

‘Oh really?’

I felt myself blush and carried on eating. There it was again, a bold feeling that was trying to have its own voice, but I was scared to let go.

We ate quietly for a bit. I studied his shoes, his legs, his kneecaps square through his jeans just like Chloe’s. I knew Chloe’s body better than I knew what my own looked like. She had a tea-coloured birthmark on her hip, china-white skin, angular shoulder blades and an outie bellybutton. I’d never thought of how similar she and Evan were, but now that I was close up to him, I saw it. Whenever I’d imagined him, it was only his face and hands and the sense of a warm any-kind-of-body I’d pictured. Now it was getting more real, but I couldn’t keep Chloe out of my head.

‘This chip looks like a foot,’ I said, trying to get back to the moment.

‘Ha! It looks like my sister’s foot. Mine are much nicer.’ He nudged me and smiled charmingly, his hair falling into his eyes. But there she was again.

I held the chip and didn’t move. Something young and playful in his voice made me see just how much Chloe and Evan were another version of Sam and me, or Essie and Georgie. Except that Evan seemed to like his sister in a way that Sam would never want to know me, and Essie’s heart had been broken when she’d left her brother. Would Sam even care if he never saw me again? Did he have the faintest clue what my feet were like or how many sugars I had in my tea? Or what kind of things worried me or what I wanted in my future?

And I didn’t know him either; we were only brother and sister in name.

But Evan got Chloe, and Chloe worshipped Evan. When I looked at him then I could see the brother Chloe loved, and I wished I had that kind of love in my life too.

I wanted him but maybe I didn’t want all the rest – it didn’t seem possible to be close to both of them.

I looked out at the sea and felt so stupid for not having seen it before. It wasn’t just chips on the beach with a boy. I couldn’t just do whatever I wanted today and back away from it tomorrow.

But in the same moment Evan kissed my cheek, like a gentle whisper telling me to turn my head. He was so close, and waiting for me. Make up your mind, Hannah. Take what you want for once. I moved my face to him and closed my eyes and then he was kissing every single thought out of my head; a kiss so warm and slow and deep I thought I’d fall off the ground.

After hours, or maybe no time at all, Evan pulled away. I kept my eyes closed to freeze time.

‘Hello in there?’ he said, and when he kissed my forehead I finally looked at him. ‘There you are.’ He lay back on the boardwalk with his head propped on one arm. He played with my sleeve and curled his hand around my wrist, stroking the inside of it with his thumb. I wanted to tell him we couldn’t kiss again. And that I wanted to go back to the kiss so badly.

A mangy bird pecked at my leftovers.

‘Gross, I hate pigeons,’ I said.

Evan lurched towards it and it hopped backwards, but quickly got brave again. He swiped at it with one arm. The bird’s beady eyes made it look stubborn. It was moving towards the chips again and suddenly Evan got up and ran towards it. He started flapping his arms and yowling like a kid with no inhibitions, charging the bird towards the water. I was laughing, fascinated and horrified. The pigeon started to take off when – silently, and so quickly – an unexpected wave caught it. The bird tried to lift its wings but the wave was like glue. A few seconds later it was as if the bird had never been there at all.

‘Damn,’ Evan said, kicking the sand. ‘That was so wrong.’

‘It’s my fault, I should have just let it eat the chips.’

I couldn’t stand for this to be the last thing that happened between us, so I walked over and slipped my hand into his. Carry on just a little longer, I thought, the way you start to wake up from a good dream and try to get back to sleep.

‘Come back to mine?’ he said.

‘Okay.’

 

We were lying on our backs in the front garden of Evan’s apartment block. The street was quiet as if the darkness had done us a favour and pushed back the noise and all the people from the bars on Fitzroy Street, to give us room. Evan was holding my hand lightly and sometimes stroking my palm with his fingers. ‘Does that feel weird?’ he said.

‘No, why?’

‘The tips of my fingers are hard from playing the guitar.’

‘I don’t mind.’ The stars and the touch of him were making me dizzy.

‘I told you it’d be a clear night,’ he said.

‘Do you know the stars? I can only ever find the Southern Cross.’

‘I used to know more when I was a kid, which is weird. My mum told me about them before she left and I guess it was my way of thinking about her without actually thinking about her, if that makes sense.’

I squeezed his hand.

‘I don’t know why but it actually makes me feel better to think of myself as a minuscule dot in the universe. Makes the little things seem less important for a moment. That one’s Betelgeuse. I love it. One huge mother.’

‘Tell me more.’

‘It’s a supergiant; one of the brightest. Part of Orion – that’s the hunter. See there? And whenever they try to measure it, the readings confuse the hell out of people. It’s kind of enigmatic. People try to pin down how big it really is but it keeps shifting.’

‘My grandmother’s name means star,’ I said, thinking how she was an enigma too.

‘What’s she like?’

‘A bit like Betelgeuse, maybe. No one can really figure her out. She and my mum are really distant, which is weird. And me and my mum are, too. Seems stupid when we’re all supposed to be part of the same family.’

‘Sounds normal. Look at us. I haven’t seen my mum for a year.’

‘A year? I thought you hadn’t seen her since you guys were little kids.’

‘She comes once a year at Christmas. We get a birthday card, too. That’s it.’

I felt the shame of being lied to by Chloe. She’d always told me she hadn’t seen her mum since she was six. ‘Aren’t you angry?’

‘Who with?’

‘Your mum.’

‘Wouldn’t do me any good. The way I see it, people call each other family because it makes them feel safe. Like the way we group stars together and call them constellations. But they’re nowhere near each other. Take Orion up there. Maybe you and your mum and Essie are like those three stars across his belt. You look like you should be close from here but you’re nowhere near each other.’

What he was saying felt too sharp and truthful but I asked him to carry on.

‘Those three stars are how people usually locate Orion. It’s how the picture starts and I guess it helps us to make sense of something that’s so huge we haven’t got a hope in hell of understanding it. But it doesn’t mean those stars have anything to do with each other, really. We just like to think they do.’

‘But I like the stories about stars.’

‘Me too. But there are lots of different versions of them so they can’t all be right. People have to be close because they want to be, not just because they think they’re part of a story they can’t get out of.’

I didn’t know what to say. Evan sounded so sure, and it felt like he was telling me I might as well give up on Essie and Mum. I’d wanted to a million times, but looking at those three stars made me want to join up the dots instead.

‘I bet your brother had something to say about you coming out with me tonight.’

‘He did, actually. What happened between you two?’

‘Don’t know, we just . . . ended. I still got on with him and everything but it was like we were either going to be best friends or nothing. And we went with nothing.’ He laughed but it sounded sad instead of cruel. ‘Have you still got a cat called Scribble?’

‘Yep. He hates me. Or at least he used to, he seems to have changed his mind recently. Evan, why did you ask me on a date?’ It just came out; I squeezed my eyes shut. I sensed him roll onto his side and felt his breath on my cheek.

‘The last few times I saw you, you looked lonely.’

‘You mean, you felt sorry for me.’

‘No, I just . . . noticed you. In a different way.’ He ran his fingers down my arm. ‘Why did you say yes?’

I smiled but kept my eyes closed. ‘Just because.’

 

In his bedroom he took a bottle off his bookcase. ‘Shot? We don’t have to.’

‘What is it?’ I said, looking around the room as if it were a museum. I’d never been in here before. It felt like I’d stepped into someone else’s story.

‘Tequila.’ He handed me a shot glass and knocked his back, then lay on his bed with one arm outstretched for me. I put my drink down, untouched. My head was fuzzy enough. Before he kissed me I noticed he had the same alarm clock as me. 9.57.

We kissed slowly at first, like we had on the beach, and then he moved on top of me. The weight of him made me kiss him harder, and there was something desperate in the way my hands were travelling over his t-shirt, up and down his arms and through his hair as he lay on top of me. But it wasn’t as simple as wanting him, it was also how scared I was of where it might end up. What if taking everything I needed from him meant that I couldn’t find my way back?

We were dizzy and hot when he stopped kissing me. He was breathing hard and I was trying to read his face to see if we were really meant to be doing this, as if he would have the answer when I didn’t. He reached over to his bedside table. ‘Shall I?’ he said, with his hand inside the drawer.

‘Okay . . . No, actually no.’ It felt like someone had turned off the music in my head.

He took his hand out of the drawer.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘No way. I’m sorry. I got carried away.’ He smiled.

I closed my eyes and caught my breath, feeling it had all gone wrong even though he was being so nice, and felt the weight of him leave me. We stayed there like that for a while.

Then I got up very carefully, sat on the edge of his bed and straightened myself out.

‘Do you want me to call you a cab?’ he said. His voice sounded kind, and he briefly rubbed my back. But when I turned to answer him I felt like it was the end in every way.

‘Thanks,’ I whispered.

In another time and place we would have had our own story. But I couldn’t sleep with him. I’d thought about it so many times that the reality had stopped making sense. And no matter how much he sounded like he wanted me, I still felt like the one with the crush.

I didn’t recognise the route home that the taxi driver took until we were almost there. And for a change it felt like a relief to be going through my own front door.

Sam hadn’t waited up. His socks were on the coffee table, puffed-up as though his feet were still inside. Mum’s bedside light shone underneath her door, but when I peeped in she was curled up and peaceful, one side of her mouth twitching as if it wanted to smile about something she was dreaming. ‘That’s good,’ I whispered, and I almost cried at having a loving thought about her.

The dream that had taken up so much of my headspace was over. But in the silence of my house, something stirred in me that told me life was about to begin, and that this time I wouldn’t just be daydreaming or trying to hide. Essie was the key and I had to get back to her story.