‘I have!’ She rolls her eyes.
‘Do you want me to call Mum?’
She shakes her head, trying not to cry, allowing me to pull her into a hug, during which I seem to revisit every single age she’s ever been and all the ages she will be. This milestone is evidence that time thunders forward, whether we’re ready or not. ‘I miss Audrey,’ she says into my chest, rendering this into one ofthosemoments, where grief attaches itself to the cells of a normal experience like a virus, because the personshould be here—the situation only magnifying their absence.
‘I miss her, too,’ I admit, heart lurching. ‘I’m sorry she’s not here to help.’
‘I feel like I’ll turn around and she’ll be standing there,’ she says quietly. ‘I literally just felt like that in there.’ She motions towards the shower block.
Of course Audrey would be there for this.
‘Don’t tell my colleagues’—I squeeze her tight and say this more softly—‘but I think the best thing we can do is allow ourselves to be comforted by that feeling, even if science can’t explain it.’
My brain won’t compute this phenomenon at all—that sudden, strong sense of someone’s presence. I’ve been tempted to discuss it with the neuroscientists at work but haven’t been brave enough. I need to keep my job! Surely there’s some logical, scientific explanation involving our desperate hope for connection or our clutching to denial. That desire to believe they never leave us, even years later, because a part of us won’t ever accept they’re really gone.
‘Listen, why don’t I leave you with my phone, since I’ve got a signal. You can stay in the tent, relax on TikTok. I’ll pop to the shops and be back in twenty minutes with everything you need. Including chocolate. How does that sound?’
When I’m back with an armful of options, I can hear Parker in the tent laughing. I fling open the door like Superman throwing his cape over his shoulder and ceremoniously toss the items I’ve foraged onto the air bed.
‘Pads,’ I announce. ‘Tampons. Liners. Overnight pads with wings. Period undies. Period cup, some sort of wipes, some kind of deodorant, this special wash stuff, naproxen, hot-water bottle, heat patches, milk chocolate, hazelnut chocolate, caramel chocolate …’
‘Wow, Parker!’Is that Rachael’s voice coming from my phone?‘If it isn’t Menstruation Man returned from a triumphant quest!’
Parker bursts into fits of laughter. ‘Dad, how many uteruses do you think I have?’
‘Is that Rach?’
‘Yes, I called her. She’s coming to visit!’
Here?
I take the phone out of her hands. Sure enough, Rach lights up the screen, luxuriating in bed in her Canberra apartment, sun streaming through the window, long blonde hair splayed across the pillow. She doesn’t look like she’s in a rush to go anywhere.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask her, backing out of the tent. ‘Hang on. Parks—do you need Rach for any of this, or are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ she says.She’s fine.My child—getting on with the business of beinggrown up, suddenly.
I carry the phone over to a picnic table. ‘Sorry she called you so early.’
‘Are you kidding? I’m thrilled she did. It’s a big thing. And she misses Audrey.’ There’s a moment of silence, the way there often is when one of us mentions her. We don’t pause deliberately. We’re not lowering the flags to half-mast and going all ceremonial on ourselves. The sound of her name just catches us off guard sometimes, even when it comes from our own lips, and snowploughs the day sideways a little.
Parker emerges from the tent, selected products from my haul bundled into the towel she’s hugging to her chest. I salute her as she walks past, as if farewelling her to the front, and Rachael smiles.
‘By the way, Dad,’ Parker calls. ‘Your phone was goingoffwith Bumble notifications. Gross!’
Oh, God. I forgot about that.
‘This one woman, Ava, messaged you three times! And then Uncle Josh called. He wants to visit me at my summer music school.’
‘But he’s in New York.’
‘He said he’s coming home for something important.’
My muscles brace as if he’s already here, my body preparing to spend his visit avoiding conflict.
‘Look, Frase, if it’s okay with you, I thought I’d book a room tonight in a motel near the camping ground,’ Rachael says, drawing my attention back to the phone in my hand. ‘Spend the weekend with Parks? Also, I’ve got some news I want to discuss with you.’
‘Are youreallyon Bumble?’ Parker calls, still backing away towards the showers.
