The flourish of autumn hues in the garden had dimmed in the weeks since Opa’s death. The maples stood huddled together with spindly yellow branches and the giant chestnut trees soared like mottled grey sculptures over the fence. Most of the trees in her grandparents’ garden had shed their dried-out leaves, and Alexandra’s neat piles of rakings stood sodden in every corner. The bright-golden dahlias were drooping, waiting to be cut to the ground. Romy insisted she was too old to be digging up the bulbs every year; the dahlias would just have to stick it out as long as she did.

Only the purple lips of the crocus pushing through the soil under the maples reminded Alexandra there was a new season and far more colour to come. In early winter, when the crocus petals bloomed, Romy would pluck the orange stamens with tweezers and lay them like threads of gold on tissue paper beside the fireplace until they dried out and could be used as saffron. As a child Alexandra had loved their winter ritual over hot chocolates. Romy placed threads as thin as cotton into tiny airtight jars, while Alexandra knotted fat bulbs of dusty pink French garlic into plaits and hung them proudly with the copper pots above the stove. Wilhelm weighed up clumps of ginger and stowed them in neatly labelled bags in the freezer.

How many years was it since she had been home for this winter family ritual? Ten at a pinch. Perhaps eleven.

It seemed cruel to leave Romy to do all this on her own. She’d tried years ago to hire a gardener to help her grandparents out with the bigger jobs, but they insisted on doing it themselves. It kept them young, they said.

She hadn’t realised until Opa was gone how much she missed these seasonal rituals.

During the ‘saffron harvest’ Alexandra always imagined that she was somehow plugging the gap in the circle where her mother had once sat. A replacement link. Her grandparents never made her feel that way. She was loved. First by her own parents, then by Oma and Opa. No question. She was the centre of this circle. And yet she was part of a chain linking to somewhere else too.

Alexandra stopped weeding and sat back on her haunches and braced herself with both hands as grief flooded her veins. This had been happening for weeks now, a sudden sadness ebbing and flowing when she least expected it. She tilted her face to the waning sun like a sunflower, closed her eyes and waited for the moment to pass.

Romy was on the other side of the path, on her blue cushioned kneepads, concentrating on weeding. Alexandra stopped and watched her grandmother nimbly reaching across the sleepers. Her movements were precise as she plucked errant weeds and tufts of grass from clods of soil, tossing them over her shoulder into the faded red wheelbarrow. Her grandmother was right; it felt lovely to be doing some physical work. She’d sleep well tonight.

The phone in Alexandra’s pocket beeped. She took off her gardening gloves, pulled it out and checked the message.

A series of numbers with a country code popped up on her screen. She sighed. She needed to call the office and talk them through the best trades. Alexandra had already spoken to London at 2 am and 5 am as well as Shanghai twice this morning. What part of annual leave didn’t her company get? She had made it very clear to human resources she was delaying her Shanghai posting to take some personal leave to be with Opa in his last days and then spend some time with Oma. Six weeks.

But still her Shanghai team kept calling. It wasn’t lost on her that the cargo ships of copper, gold and iron ore snaking their way around the world were far slower than the electronic deals oiling the desks of her company. Two or three taps of a keyboard and the deal was done. She’d been the top spot trader in London.

Alexandra looked at her grandmother pulling weeds from the soil, making room for new plants and new life. Her white hair was tucked under her yellow bandana and she hummed to herself as she worked. Alexandra considered their different lives. Romy was dedicated to nurturing and healing people, and nourishing the soil and her garden. Romy made everything beautiful, people better. She was always so dignified. Alexandra made some people richer. She pulled things from the ground without giving a second thought as to what was left behind. Beside her grandmother, Alexandra had as much dignity as a pub brawler.

Romy took a sip from her water bottle and raised an eyebrow at Alexandra, who was still staring at her beeping phone.

‘Go, take the call,’ said Romy.

‘I’ll just send this one text.’

56 and not a penny more.

A reply beep.

Done. Profit 306K. Nice.

Alexandra smiled and slipped her phone back into her pocket. Three million pounds. Over ten per cent profit. Not a bad outcome from hands deep in straw and pig shit. Romy met her eyes and Alexandra’s smile dropped. With her grandmother watching, her glee over the sale felt vulgar. Greedy even.

Romy held her gaze and said, ‘You need to go back to work, Liebling.’ It was a simple statement, not the reprimand she was expecting.

‘I’ve got another week, Oma. But—’ she hesitated ‘—I’m not sure I should leave you.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Romy. ‘I may be old, but I’m not an invalid.’ Indeed, Alexandra had noticed a little more colour in Romy’s cheeks the last few days and she seemed to be regaining her energy. Alexandra had underestimated the pain and grief and fatigue of caring for Opa. It was like her grandmother had lost five years in age overnight since they’d started work back in the garden.

‘But I don’t want to leave you alone,’ she argued. ‘It doesn’t feel right.’ Who knew how long her grandmother had left? She pictured Opa on the hospital bed with the ventilator.

‘Your Opa wouldn’t have wanted you to stay, and nor do I. You can’t put your life on hold for me. The right kind of work is one of the things that gives your life meaning. I would be lost without my herbs and my clinic.’ Romy gave her a reassuring smile. ‘It’s okay to go, Liebling,’ she said softly. ‘You go with my blessings. I insist…’

Alexandra’s phone beeped again and she pulled it out and read the message, scrolling through prices, as her grandmother said, ‘See, you have important work.’

Her stomach churned, because her work didn’t seem that important lately. She didn’t use her maths like her parents had. For genetics, for research. The trouble was, she couldn’t quite put her finger on what was the right kind of work for her.

She’d never forget the look on her probability lecturer’s face at Oxford when she’d told him she’d taken a job as a commodities trader in the City. He had inhaled sharply through his nose and then said, ‘Right. Well, best of luck with your new job. I hope you find it interesting.’ He’d paused then, holding his notebook to his chest as he gazed at the ceiling, as if searching for the right words, before he said very slowly, ‘I hope, Alexandra, you find the job fulfilling.’ She’d thought it a strange and particularly pompous statement at the time.

Alexandra glanced from the phone to her grandmother, scanning her Oma’s face for any traces of disappointment. As usual, there were none. Romy’s eyes were full of love and hope. Her grandmother was the eternal optimist.

So why did phrases like ‘important work’ seem to mock her? Her big wins feel hollow? She’d just bought her third apartment in one of Melbourne’s best suburbs, paid for in full with this year’s bonus. She should be feeling proud. She’d worked so hard and achieved so much. She was living the dream.

On paper.

Because Alexandra was already feeling sad, she started making a mental list of all that was wrong with her life. She thought of Hugo. He’d stopped messaging her at least. His last one was just before the burial: I’m sorry. Forgive me.

As his words ricocheted around her stomach, Alexandra felt so drained she couldn’t even cry. She yanked out some parsley and coriander that had gone to seed in a single fistful and hoisted it into the wheelbarrow. It wasn’t just losing Opa, although that made her saddest.

‘Alexandra?’ Romy had put her trowel down and come to rest her hand on her granddaughter’s shoulder. ‘This broken heart, I wish I could give you some herbs. But trust me when I tell you, it will heal. With time.’

How was it her grandmother could always read her mind?

Hugo didn’t deserve the headspace she spent analysing how it all went awry. But when she thought back to that moment eight years ago when he popped into the back end of her final recruitment interview in the city boardroom, pink pinstripe shirt, blue eyes holding her gaze without blinking…well, there was no other word for it: she’d been smitten. He’d glanced at her CV and said, ‘I’m sure Pete has explained that you’ll be deep-diving into options and derivatives.’ He shook his blond fringe away from his face, smiled and said, ‘I just have one question: you won’t be leaving me for Wall Street anytime soon, will you?’

Alexandra swallowed to stop herself from blushing.

‘I want my big gun staying in London,’ he continued smoothly. We’ve got plenty to do here.’

Alexandra flicked some tomato leaves into the barrow with both hands while she wondered just who she was trying to impress by smashing through the spot trades.

She looked at Romy, who had her head tilted to the side, tanned wrinkled face creased with concern.

‘I’m sorry, Oma. You’re the one who has had so much heartbreak. So much loss…I just feel silly. It’s just a bad break-up with a boyfriend.’ She fiddled with her trowel, knocking it against the border of the garden bed three times and watching the clods of soil tumble from the pointed tip. Anything to avoid making eye contact with her grandmother. Even though Oma could read her like a book and they were close, she hadn’t talked about Hugo these past few months.

Romy raised her eyebrows. ‘A bit more than that, surely. You lived with him for three years.’

Alexandra opened her mouth to speak but then closed it. How to explain that they’d really lived out of suitcases, and in the last six months she’d probably exchanged more words with their apartment building’s concierge than Hugo? One of them was always on the way to or from Heathrow. Alexandra paused, realising these enforced breaks had been a relief for her. She was used to being alone.

Romy spoke firmly. ‘What nonsense. Grief is not a competition. It can’t be measured, Alexandra.’

She smiled wryly. Her grandparents had always kept the European tradition of using her full name, while the rest of Australia lopped it off to make it as short as possible. Alex, Al, A…she answered to them all.

‘Maybe a change will do me good. I can start afresh in Shanghai.’ Romy rubbed her back then twisted a few times to loosen it up. ‘Shanghai. It’s the perfect city for reinvention.’ She closed her eyes.

‘You never went back. Nor did Nina or Opa. To Shanghai, I mean.’ She thought she’d bring it up. For way too long Shanghai had almost felt like a taboo subject.

‘I have Shanghai here, in my heart.’ Romy thumped her chest. ‘Besides, you need to go there, my Liebling. It’s in your blood.’ Romy gave a resigned sigh but offered no new information.

Alexandra’s heart skipped a beat. Had she left her laptop open last night when she was Googling Agencies for Finding Chinese Birth Parents?

It was a strange thing for Romy to say.

Alexandra’s face flushed and she looked Romy in the eye. She had already packed her mother’s diary and she planned to use her free time, if she had any, to research her Chinese heritage.

Perhaps Shanghai could be Alexandra’s city of reinvention too.