Saturday

Sam pulled up in front of Hal’s apartment block a few minutes after ten, but at least he was waiting for her now. She’d already driven around the block twice after arriving early and having no chance of finding a park. She didn’t know how people lived in the middle of the city. She hoped it wasn’t going to be an issue when she moved. ‘Garage’ was on her list of desirables but she had better add ‘Parking’ at least to her essentials.

‘Hey Sam,’ he smiled, climbing into the car. ‘So, where are we headed?’

Sam pulled off up the street. ‘Well, you were after a typical Australian day out, am I correct?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Okay, the first thing you have to understand is that it’s not a proper day out unless you drive a long way.’

‘Oh?’

‘Australians are happy to drive the distance on a weekend that most Europeans would only travel on their holidays. The maxim seems to be the further you go, the better time you’ll have.’

‘So, where are you taking me?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘Mom will worry if I’m not home before nightfall.’

Sam grinned. ‘Just up the coast a little way. There’s a place I used to visit when I was little.’

‘You’re still little.’

She looked sideways at him. ‘Younger then.’

‘So what did you do at this place up the coast when you were younger?’

‘We spent a lot of time at the beach, naturally. Any authentic Australian experience has to include the beach.’

‘The beach?’

Sam nodded. ‘The myth is that we all live outback in the bush, but hardly any of us do. Twenty million people, fewer than in New York I think, and we’re all loitering around the shore, dipping our toes in the water. You want a classic Australian day out, then you need to get sunburnt, dumped in the surf till your cossies are full of sand, dragged out by a rip and dragged back in by a lifesaver. Oh, and stung by a bluebottle.’

‘I didn’t understand half of what you just said. What’s a bluebottle?’

‘I think it’s some kind of jellyfish, I’m not really sure exactly. But it’s only small, and it looks like a transparent blue plastic bag with tentacles hanging off it. And it stings like buggery.’

‘What?’

‘They entangle themselves around your limbs, and when you try to pull them off, they grip tighter, and get tangled up in your fingers, and they keep on stinging.’

‘Is it bad?’

Sam looked at Hal’s pained expression. ‘They can’t kill you or anything. They just hurt like hell. It feels like an electric shock. When I was a girl they used to sponge you down with vinegar, or paint you all over with this blue stuff if you were stung. Now the treatment may be a little more sophisticated.’ She sighed. ‘But summer’s not really summer without one decent bluebottle infestation.’

Hal was shaking his head. ‘Honestly, you Australians are crazy. You’ve got poisonous snakes and spiders and deadly things in the water, and yet you blithely carry on as though they’re not there.’

‘No we don’t. We take the proper precautions.’

He glanced at her dubiously. ‘I was at the beach one day when I first arrived in the country. Not swimming, just looking. Anyway, a siren sounded and everyone got out of the water. I asked someone nearby what was going on –’

‘It would have been a shark alarm.’

‘That’s what they told me,’ Hal nodded. ‘Then after a little bit, the alarm sounded again and everyone went straight back into the water. I’m saying you’re all crazy.’

Sam laughed. ‘There are hardly ever any sharks.’

‘Sorry, “hardly ever” is too often for me.’

‘So I take it you don’t go to the beach much?’

He shook his head. ‘You don’t swim in the ocean in the States. Not where I come from.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s too cold.’

‘So do you swim at all?’

‘Sure. I spent all my summers as a boy at the lake.’

‘But you grew up here?’

‘Just till I was seven. For the rest of my childhood we went to the lake.’

‘I don’t like swimming in lakes and rivers,’ said Sam, turning up her nose.

‘Why not?’

‘Well, you don’t know what’s under there. There could be all kinds of creepy-crawlies.’

Hal shook his head. ‘At least there are no man-eating sharks or blue-tentacled creatures that give you an electric shock.’

‘Or box jellyfish,’ Sam added. ‘Step on one of them and you’re dead in a few minutes. Then there’s the blue-ringed octopus, the crown-of-thorns starfish . . . oh, and I was reading about this new one they’ve discovered. I can’t remember its name, but it’s only the size of a peanut, and if its tentacles so much as brush against your skin, you end up in hospital.’

Hal was looking at her in horror.

‘You don’t have to worry,’ she grinned. ‘They’re only found up the top end, and only at certain times of the year.’

‘Are we going to the beach today?’ he asked dubiously.

‘Just for a walk,’ she assured him. ‘I wouldn’t take you swimming in the middle of winter.’

He shook his head. ‘Winter in Sydney. It’s a bit of a joke, isn’t it?’

‘Why? It gets cold.’

‘You people don’t know the meaning of the word cold.’ He looked out the window into the bright blue sky. They were just crossing the Harbour Bridge. The water was flecked fluorescent from the sunshine. ‘Just look at this beautiful day. It has no business calling itself winter.’

Sam glanced out across the harbour. The sky was clear to the horizon, there wasn’t a cloud in sight. She should have hung out a few loads of washing before she left.

What was that? When had a clear, cloudless day only come to mean a good drying day? Or a good day for airing the doonas, or washing the floor? When had she become such a boring, joyless person?

‘What is it?’ asked Hal.

She looked at him.

‘You’re frowning.’

‘Oh, I didn’t mean to,’ she said, breaking into a smile. ‘I was just thinking, it really is a beautiful day.’

They talked easily as they drove out of the city, eventually joining the expressway north. Hal had never really told Sam much about his home, and she was intrigued. There was a perception that Americans were ignorant about Australia, which was probably true, but Sam was embarrassed to admit that her own perceptions of America were shaped largely by what she saw in the movies or on TV. New York was full of wisecracking thirtysomethings who spent a lot of time in each other’s apartments or in coffee shops. And the mob lived over, was it the Brooklyn Bridge? Chicago had Oprah, and apparently a lot of hospitals, given that so many medical dramas seemed to be set there. Boston was full of lawyers and LA was Movieworld. She didn’t know where Vermont was, which was where Hal’s family had settled on their return from Australia. He explained it was between New York state and New Hampshire in the New England region. At least Sam knew that meant the east coast. It snowed in the wintertime and it was nowhere near the ocean, Hal added, which was why he was not accustomed to swimming in one.

The conversation flowed without effort. It was actually a pleasant experience to be driving along, chatting amiably with another adult. Usually when they had travelled anywhere as a family it had been an ordeal, shouting above the kids to stop them fighting, or bickering over directions or bad driving habits. Sam didn’t like the way Jeff drove right up the back of other cars, or his obsession with overtaking, or that he was a bit elastic with the speed limit. And he didn’t like her pointing out any of those things.

Sam turned off the freeway at the Gosford exit and followed the winding road that would take them to the coast. She had done this trip at the start of almost every school holiday when she was growing up. Her mother didn’t like the road and refused to drive on it, so Pop would come down to pick them up. Nan never came, and Pop never stayed over at their house. He’d stop for lunch, stretch his legs, but he wouldn’t linger more than an hour or so. It became clear to the girls as they grew older that their mother and her parents didn’t really get along, but they didn’t delve into it. Sam and Max thought they were the luckiest children alive to be able to spend their holidays in the little green cottage in Taloumbi, so they asked no questions.

They only spent Easter and part of the Christmas holidays together at home. And that was more than enough. Bernice Driscoll thought holidays were best spent on projects around the house. They cleaned windows, washed curtains and blinds, stripped and polished floors, cleared out cupboards. Maxine hated it with a passion and put more energy into avoiding than doing. Alex usually had school assignments and, later on, part-time work at the local supermarket. Sam was her mother’s mainstay, and she had to admit she found the whole exercise strangely satisfying, which was probably a bit odd for such a young girl.

Alex stopped coming to Taloumbi after a few years when she decided she was old enough to look after herself during the school break, thank you very much. Bernice didn’t argue with her eldest daughter. Even then no one argued with Alex. Certainly not Sam and Max. Alex bossed them around even more at Nan’s, overseeing how many scones they ate and what time they went to bed. It was much more fun without her.

They lost Pop the year Sam turned fifteen, and Nan the year she turned sixteen. The first holiday she spent at home she started going out with Jeff.

As they approached the town centre of Taloumbi, Sam started to feel the same sense of anticipation she had as a girl. She hadn’t been here since before she was married, so she shouldn’t have been surprised that the quiet little village had turned into a busy shopping centre. But it made her a little sad. She had always meant to bring the children to show them the place but she had never got around to it. It probably wouldn’t mean that much to them anyway, it was just a little green-painted fibro house on a big, wide, flat block of land, a stone’s throw from the beach.

‘It’s not far now,’ she told Hal. ‘I used to spend all my holidays up here when I was a girl.’

‘Oh? Did your family have a place here?’

Sam shook her head. ‘My grandparents lived here. My mother had to work full-time after my father left, so they looked after my sisters and me in the school holidays.’ She glanced across at Hal who looked as though he wasn’t sure what he should say. ‘Don’t worry, they were the happiest times of my childhood.’

Sam had checked a map at home to make sure she would remember where to go, which was just as well because the area had changed considerably. There were many more blocks of flats and flashy houses, but Dolphin Parade was still where it had always been. It was a long street stretching from the main thoroughfare all the way to the beach. Sam drove slowly – she hardly had a choice considering the obstacle course of speed humps and roundabouts she had to negotiate. After a while she began to feel uneasy. There was one block of flats after another; she couldn’t imagine the dear little green house sitting there all alone, overshadowed by its neighbours.

Sam steered around the final roundabout. This was the last stretch of road before the beach. She scanned ahead, looking for a gap between the buildings. She pulled up where number seven should have been. But there wasn’t even a number ‘7’ any more. There were only the words Bella Vista in black iron curlicues on the front of a blonde-brick three-storey block of flats. Sam stared at it, uncomprehending. She blinked, hoping that when she opened her eyes the green house would be sitting there again. She was unaware that Hal had said her name a couple of times. She only remembered he was there at all when she felt his hand on hers, still clutching the steering wheel. It gave her a start, and she looked at him for a moment without really seeing him. She turned away and got out of the car, leaving the door open as she hurried down the road towards the beach.

‘Sam!’

She stopped at the street sign at the corner and stared at it, the letters burning into her eyes. Dolphin Parade. She hadn’t made a mistake. So where was the house?

Hal caught up to her as she started back up the street again. He grabbed her by the arm. She looked at him, startled.

‘Sam, you left the car running,’ he said, holding the keys. ‘What’s wrong, what’s the matter?’

‘I can’t find Nan’s house,’ she said tearfully, pulling away and running back up to where it should have been. She stopped for a moment, breathless, out the front of Bella Vista. Then she started down the driveway.

‘Sam!’ Hal had followed her. He caught her arm again and swung her around. ‘You’re sure this is the right street?’

She nodded, blinking back tears, the ache in the back of her throat making it hard to speak.

Hal held both her arms gently. She looked like a bewildered little girl. He barely had the heart to say anything. ‘Then the house is gone, Sam,’ he said quietly. ‘It must have been pulled down a long time ago.’

She looked at him for a while as the truth dawned on her. ‘I have to call my mother,’ she said, breaking away from him and heading back to the car. She opened the door and reached across to her bag for her mobile. She dialled the number and leaned on the car, waiting for it to connect. Hal stayed back, propped against the brick fence of Bella Vista.

She heard her mother’s voice. ‘Hello?’

‘Mum, it’s Sam.’

‘Oh, Samantha. I can’t hear you very well, it’s a bad connection. Where are you calling from? Are you on the mobile?’

‘I’m in Taloumbi.’

‘You’re calling from Taloumbi on your mobile? It’ll cost you a fortune.’

‘Mum,’ Sam interrupted brusquely. ‘What happened to Nan and Pop’s place?’

‘Why, I sold it. Years ago.’

Sam breathed out heavily. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I’m sure I did –’

‘No, you didn’t,’ Sam said firmly. ‘You never told me anything about it.’

‘Well, it was right around the time you were getting married, you probably don’t remember.’

‘You never told me!’ she insisted sharply. ‘I would remember.’

‘Fair enough, if you say so. Why did you want to know anyway?’

Sam paused, catching her breath. ‘I drove up to see it today, for old times’ sake.’

She heard her mother chuckle. ‘Honestly Samantha, you always were sentimental. If it had still been standing it would have been such a dump by now.’

‘So you knew they were going to pull it down?’

‘Of course! What else would they do with a little fibro shack, especially on such a prime block of land. We sold it to a developer for quite a tidy sum. Some of it paid for your wedding.’

Well, wasn’t that a bitter fucking irony.

‘Sam, are you there? I think I must be losing you.’

For some reason, Sam didn’t say anything.

‘She must have dropped out,’ her mother muttered to herself. Then she hung up. Sam sighed heavily and turned off the phone in case she tried to ring back. Not that her mother would ever do that, it would be too expensive.

Sam glanced over towards Hal. God, he must think she was cracked. She should never have brought him here. And now she was going to have to do the right thing and see this day out when all she felt like doing was crawling under a rock.

She dropped the phone back into her bag and reached for a tissue. When she turned around again Hal was wandering slowly over to her, his hands thrust in his pockets.

‘Are you okay?’

She nodded, mustering a smile. ‘Let me assure you, the quintessential day out does not usually involve a woman having a loony attack. That’s an optional extra.’

‘You had a bit of a shock,’ he said. ‘It’s understandable.’

Oh, don’t be nice. If he was nice, she was going to burst into tears, she just knew it.

‘Did you find out what happened?’ he asked.

Sam nodded. ‘My mother sold it to a developer to help pay for my wedding. Talk about throwing good money after bad!’ she scoffed. She was trying to lift the mood but Hal just looked sadly at her. Shit.

‘I just don’t understand why everything has to change,’ Sam sighed. ‘Why some things can’t stay the same.’

‘They call it progress,’ he said ruefully.

‘Who says?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘When we’re little we don’t want to throw out the old, we cling to it,’ Sam said testily. ‘Old teddies, raggedy blankets, we cherish what’s familiar. We love it despite it being old and tatty, perhaps even because of it. And then somewhere along the way we’re taught to believe that new is better, younger is more attractive. We discard people as though they had a use-by date.’

Sam realised she’d been tearing her tissue up savagely as she spoke. What the hell was she going on about? She glanced up at Hal. He still had that sympathetic expression on his face. God, he must think she was loopy.

‘This isn’t much of a day out for you,’ she said.

‘Don’t worry about me.’ He leaned back against the car next to her and folded his arms. ‘Would you rather go home?’

Sam shook her head. It was hardly fair on Hal to drag him all the way up here only to turn around and go home again. And he was being so decent about it all. She looked down the street to the beach. At least it hadn’t changed. ‘Do you want to go for a walk?’

‘Sure.’

They strolled slowly down to the end of the road.

‘You must have been very close to your grandparents,’ said Hal after a while.

Sam nodded. ‘Coming here was the most normal family experience we had. I have such fond memories of the house. It was just a simple little cottage, but . . .’ she sighed. ‘My mother thought it was nothing but an old shack. She didn’t really see eye to eye with her parents. But we loved them. I named Ellie after Nan.’

They came to the track through the sandhills that would take them to the beach.

‘And your grandfather?’ Hal prompted Sam to continue.

‘Oh, we adored Pop. I used to follow him around the entire time, but he didn’t seem to mind. I think he may have enjoyed it.’

‘I’m sure he did.’

They came to an octagonal viewing platform set on the crest of the sandhills. There were signs with information about the dune regeneration project being undertaken along the beach, the reason the track was cordoned off.

‘Max and I used to play hide and seek in these dunes. And then when we got a little older, we’d hide and watch the guys when they came out of the surf. They’d do these really complicated manoeuvres with their towels wrapped around them, getting their boardshorts or wetsuits off and dry clothes on. We used to watch, hoping we’d see something, but if we ever had, I’m sure we would have died.’

Hal smiled.

‘Coming from an all-female household made us overly curious and incredibly naïve. Boys were a mystery, like another species. It was quite an education having one of my own, let me tell you.’

‘When did your father leave?’

‘Just after Maxine was born. I was only three, I don’t really remember him.’

‘You never saw him again?’

Sam shook her head. She didn’t like talking about her father. Most of the time she forgot she even had one.

They continued down the track towards the sand.

‘I love the beach,’ said Sam. ‘It takes me back to being a kid. You know, carefree, no responsibilities. I’ve always said if I ever won the lottery, I’d go lie on a beach somewhere for a month.’

‘I can’t imagine you doing that,’ said Hal.

She looked at him. ‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know,’ he shrugged. ‘I can’t see you staying put for that long. You’re always so busy.’

Sam smiled. ‘I’d like to give it a go. See what it’d be like to have nothing to do for a while.’

They had reached the shore and Sam stooped to untie her sneakers. Hal did the same. She stepped forward to test the water.

‘Oh my God! It’s freezing,’ she gasped.

Hal followed her. ‘It’s not cold,’ he scoffed. ‘It’s . . .’

Sam looked at him expectantly.

‘Bracing,’ he finished.

They continued along the shoreline, their feet sinking in the damp sand, leaving a trail of footprints. Sam remembered walking along with Max in single file behind Pop, stepping in his footprints. When they were little they used to have to leap from one to the next to match his strides.

‘So you had a pretty idyllic childhood?’ Sam asked Hal after a while.

‘What makes you say that?’

She shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Summers by the lake, skiing in the winter. Sounds not bad to me.’

Hal chuckled.

‘What?’

‘Australians have some funny ways of expressing themselves. You say “not bad” when you mean something’s good, and “not too good” when something’s bad.’

‘It’s so we can never be accused of overstating anything. So, how was your childhood?’ she asked pointedly.

‘Not bad,’ he quipped.

‘Any brothers or sisters?’

‘One sister, ten years older than me.’

‘So you were spoilt rotten?’

Hal smiled. ‘No, I was nurtured and cherished and ended up growing into a very well-balanced adult. Haven’t you noticed?’

Sam eyed him. ‘And your parents were both academics?’

‘How did you know that?’

‘I listen Hal, I’m a woman.’

He shook his head. ‘Okay. My father was a professor of literature. My mother was originally one of his students.’

‘Sounds a bit scandalous.’

‘No, nothing happened until she came back as a graduate. She was studying for her masters degree and he was her adviser. She was very bright, probably more intelligent than my father. I think it threatened him a little.’

‘Oh?’

He nodded. ‘Anyway, they married, and pretty soon she was pregnant with my sister. She gave up academia and devoted herself to Portia –’

‘Portia?’

‘Mm,’ Hal smiled. ‘From The Merchant of Venice. My mother had a thing for Shakespeare.’

‘I remember “Prince Hal”,’ said Sam. ‘She had a PhD, didn’t you say?’

‘Not quite,’ he explained. ‘She was invited to take up a research position and complete her PhD at Dartmouth College, which was very prestigious, it’s an Ivy League school. But out of the blue, my father accepted the post in Australia. She worked on her thesis out here, and then I came along. She never finished it. Portia thinks that’s just how my father wanted it.’

‘What do you think?’

Hal shrugged. ‘I don’t know why Mom made the choices she did, I don’t know what went on behind closed doors. I was just a kid, she was a very loving mother. She seemed happy to me.’

‘Maybe she was.’

‘Portia will always believe she was trapped in the marriage and wasn’t able to express herself. I suggested once that maybe Mom found expression in her role as our mother. Portia nearly bit my head off. She said that was just the kind of typical, misogynist, male egotism that fuelled our patriarchal society and kept women as the underlings,’ he recited.

‘What did you say to that?’

‘I took it right back. Portia can be pretty scary. Especially when you’re ten years old and she’s twenty and she’s at college, and she comes home and all she does is fight with everybody.’ He paused, staring down at the sand as he walked. ‘She was always yelling at Mom, telling her to break out, live her own life. It used to worry me as a little kid. I didn’t understand, I thought she’d go and I’d be left alone with my father.’

‘I’m assuming that never happened?’

Hal sighed heavily. ‘She died the year I went to college. Cancer.’

‘Oh Hal, I’m sorry.’

They didn’t say anything for a while. They had come to the headland and they started to pick their way over the rocks until the encroaching waves forced them back. The swell was huge today. They sat on a flat rock staring out towards the horizon.

‘What about your father?’ Sam asked eventually.

‘He’s still alive. He spends most of his time on his own, writing and researching. He has the occasional paper published. I don’t think he ever got over losing Mom, despite the fact that he never really appreciated her while she was there.’

‘Oh?’

‘According to Portia,’ he smiled faintly.

‘Do you see him much?’

‘It’s a little difficult at the moment.’

‘I realise that,’ said Sam. ‘But when you were back home?’

‘Well, we lived on opposite sides of the country . . .’ Hal glanced at her briefly before looking back out at the sea. ‘He’s not an easy person to get close to. We don’t really have a lot in common.’

Sam sensed he didn’t want to say too much more about that. ‘What about Portia?’

‘She lives in LA, somewhere she knew my father would never come to visit. There’s no love lost between those two.’ Hal leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. ‘Portia’s the activist of the family. I think she believes she’s giving Mom the voice she never had. She never married but she had a daughter, who’s all grown up now, married with children of her own. All very respectable. Portia thinks she failed with her,’ Hal grinned.

‘Do you keep in touch?’

‘Sure,’ he nodded. ‘We haven’t lived nearby each other since I was a kid, but we have a very fiery email relationship. She blames me for all the sins of men because I am one, for multinational corporations because I work for one, and for technology because of what I do.’

‘How did you end up working in IT anyway?’ Sam asked as the thought occurred to her. ‘You know, coming from a literary family. Were you being a rebel?’

Hal smiled. ‘Maybe a little, but it was mostly by accident. I floundered a bit after Mom died, dropped out of college and took a job in an electronics workshop. I didn’t really imagine it would become my career.’

‘A career you don’t even like any more?’ Sam suggested.

He looked at her. ‘You really do listen, don’t you?’

She smiled.

‘It’s probably just typical middle-class, middle-aged, egocentric male angst,’ said Hal. ‘At least that’s what Portia would call it.’

‘Did you ever have a dream to do anything else?’

‘Sure.’

‘Like what?’ Sam urged.

He turned around to face her. ‘Well, there was cowboy, fireman and then astronaut, or maybe it was the other way around. Astronaut and then fireman.’

‘Okay, anything after the age of ten?’ Sam persisted.

‘Well, that was the year my parents bought me my first sailboat –’

‘You really were spoilt.’

Hal ignored that. ‘I spent my teenage years dreaming up ways to make a living sailing around the world.’

‘But you never did?’

‘After I quit college I crewed a boat around the Caribbean for a few months. But that was about it.’

‘Do you still sail?’

‘Sure, all the time.’

‘Really?’ Sam exclaimed. ‘Here in Australia?’

He nodded. ‘I was out on the harbour last weekend.’ He looked at her. ‘Why are you so surprised?’

Sam realised that ever since the girls had planted the seed, she’d had images of Hal trawling the bars in his spare time, picking up women to take home for sympathy sex.

‘It probably just doesn’t fit with my mental picture of you.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘You have a mental picture of me? What am I wearing?’

‘Shut up.’

‘I told Josh I’d take him sailing. He didn’t mention it?’

She looked at Hal. ‘That would involve opening his mouth and forming words into some sort of meaningful communication.’

Hal smiled, shaking his head. ‘I’ll have to take you sailing sometime.’

‘No thanks,’ she baulked.

‘Why not? You can’t be afraid of the water, not after braving bluebottles and octopus and God knows what else.’

‘As long as my feet are on the bottom and my head is above water, I’m fine,’ Sam returned. ‘But I don’t like the idea of being in a boat with a flimsy sail flapping about, going this way and that, being tossed around by the wind and the waves.’

Hal laughed. ‘That’s not how it is. You have to learn to control the boat, use the conditions to your advantage.’

‘I’m sure you never have complete control,’ Sam said.

‘You don’t need to have complete control. Giving up a little and letting the boat take you is part of the attraction. The freedom.’

‘It doesn’t sound like freedom, it sounds scary.’ Sam twirled her toe around in a tiny pool that had formed in the rock. She was aware that Hal was watching her. ‘Well,’ she said briskly, standing up. ‘You must be getting hungry.’

‘What are you going to subject me to this time?’

‘Mm,’ she said, starting along the rocks back to the sand. ‘Ever had a Chiko roll?’ She turned to look at him. He shook his head. ‘What about a battered sav?’

‘A what?’

‘No, I couldn’t do it to you,’ Sam grinned, skipping across the rocks ahead of him. She didn’t want to waste the day being sad. It might be the last day she’d have to herself for a while.

Her mother had said she was overly sentimental, like it was a bad thing. But perhaps she was right. Sam had too much baggage, she had to learn what to leave behind, what was not worth dragging around any more. It just made her feel heavy and heartsore. Clearly she wasn’t the only person in the universe with sadness in her past. Maybe her grandparents’ house was gone, but the memory of her childhood years spent with them was still intact. And she could keep that with her forever.