This touch. It shouldn’t exist between us. Safer that way.
I lock my fingers firmly around his.
In the dark, even the tanline at my wrist is non-existent.
Keep holding me. Keep tethering me. Keep wanting me.
The play carries on, steady and bright, the world pretending nothing’s happened.
Until the end.
When the wave is supposed to bring the boat of kids safely back to shore, the first of eight in the wave trips, knocking the second. The second falls into the third—a domino effect. A suddenly crashing wave.
The audience laughs.
The ‘wave’ groans; in parts, cries.
The kids in the boat scramble ashore and act like it was always meant to be this way.
The lights go down.
My hand unlaces from Trent’s, slowly. I’m peeling away a secret just in time to clap. The hall lights flare. Grandpa turns, searching for us in the crowd.
The kids bow.
I clap harder, louder, trying to drown the pounding of my heart, the screaming questions in our silence.
Moana steps up, still laughing. “Like life, eh? Waves don’t always go as planned.”
She laughs.
We laugh.
Mum stands.
Her head turns, scanning the rows.
Trent moves, instinctively, sliding in front of me until she and Holly are gone.
Ten minutes later, Trent and I wave off the oldies in their van and walk Grandpa home. Grandpa walks in the middle. Me to his right, pretending not to notice the wide space Trent puts between us.
The night hums with leftover applause and my right hand tingles. “So. Thoughts, Grandpa?”
“Wish I were ten again.” He smiles. “When falling over is something to cry about.”
“I dunno—take away your cane, you can cry about it now.”
Grandpa swats me.
Trent, ahead, unlocks the door and corrals Grandpa away from inflicting any damage. I stroll down the hall of photos after. The birthday dress-up Grandpa and Dylan Polaroid is framed and up on the wall. A little apart from the crowd of others. Like the extended hall is a timeline and we’re on a new part of it.
Trent and Grandpa laugh from the kitchen-dining room and I turn in, scanning that wall of postcards for mine.
“Fridge,” Trent murmurs as he passes me.
And I pivot.
My postcards, pinned with silver-fern magnets.
