I remember the lights turning into blurs of blazing fire. I remember the air-conditioning chilling my arms. The smell of coffee smudging into the smell of eucalyptus.

How would she find her herd? How would she find you?

I looked down at my stomach. I grabbed at it, seeing how much fat I could lift up in a roll. "Don't worry," you said, one eye open again like a crocodile watching me. "You're beautiful." You tipped your head back. "Beautiful," you murmured. "Perfect.

Had you been lying all along? Mum gently stroked my hair. I whispered into her shoulder. “I can’t go back. Not yet. I can’t leave.” And she held my head tight to her chest and wrapped her arms around me. “You don’t have to,” she said, rocking me. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, not anymore.” And I cried.

Because it's magic, this place . . . beautiful. And you're beautiful . . . beautifully separate. It all fits.

If there'd been an astronaut on the moon right then, I'm sure I could have seen him. Perhaps he could have looked down and seen me too... the only one who could.

You told me once of the plants that lie dormant through the drought, that wait, half-dead, deep in the earth. The plants that wait for the rain. You said they'd wait for years, if they had to; that they'd almost kill themselves before they grew again. But as soon as those first drops of water fall, those plants begin to stretch and spread their roots. They travel up through the soil and sand to reach the surface. There's a chance for them again.