It’s a stinking hot Sunday as Dad’s yellow BA Falcon zips down the highway at 130 k’s an hour. We’re nearly back in Greenough. The highway is long and straight and flat and I can see sheep grazing.
I pick some Chiko Roll debris out of my teeth and scroll through my phone. Richelle’s added me back to Facebook and tagged me in a photo – one she took of us on the dancefloor at Robbie’s wedding. I smile and accept her request, but don’t comment on the photo. Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen, that’s what they say.
Doug kicks my leg.
‘What?’ I snap.
He holds up his earphones. ‘They broke. Can I borrow yours?’
I rummage around in the backpack at my feet. The scent of leather and rum and spice clings to the clothes I wore to the wedding; it fills my nostrils, reminding me of the boy I’ve forbidden myself to think of by name.
I shake my earphones free from beneath the clothes and chuck them over to Doug.
‘Love road trips at this time of year,’ Dad mutters. ‘Look at that.’
The yellow canola fields stretch for kilometres. I look for that patch of wild lupins – the blemish of purple that spoiled the yellow – but it never appears. The farmer must have weeded them out over the weekend, uprooted them and burned them on a bonfire.
All that’s left is the uniform blanket of yellow that covers the land, unbroken and unblemished.
Perfection, as far as the eye can see.