“You need anything?” Jude asks from the bottom of the steps.

Hannah shakes her head. “Don’t drive if you’re tired tomorrow.”

“I’d better be going,” I say quietly, walking down the steps. When I reach him, I stop.

I want to say a lot of things to Jude and Hannah. I want to thank them and tell them that my life would be like Sam’s if it wasn’t for them. I want to tell them that the brilliance of that memory of lying between them won’t be easily surpassed and that the stories of their love for each other touch me in a way I didn’t think possible. I want to convince them that my father comes to speak to me at night and that his love for the two of them is never-ending.

“Jude,” I say, taking a deep breath. “Hannah reckons that if you ask her to marry you, she’ll say yes.”

I pat him on the shoulder and walk away, breaking into a run when I reach the clearing. Griggs is waiting. He takes my hand and we walk.

The Cadets leave from the general store. There is a crowd outside the buses while goodbyes are said and much-needed munchy provisions are purchased. I stay close to Griggs while he talks to people around him and although we don’t say a word to each other, we are never more than an inch apart. Every now and again, while he’s speaking to Santangelo’s mum or some of the Townies, our eyes meet and I dare not open my mouth in case I cry.

One of their teachers calls them from the bus and they begin to file on, calling out last-minute goodbyes. I watch Ben give instructions to Anson Choi, and the Mullet Brothers argue with them at the bus window. They have some gig planned in Canberra and they can’t agree on the songs or their order. But I can tell they all like one another so much even if one of the Mullet Brothers has Ben in a headlock, pretending to hit his head against the side of the bus.

Ben pulls away and walks towards us, putting his arm around my shoulder ever so innocently.

“I think you guys need to be on the bus,” he says to Griggs.

“And I think you may end up under it,” Griggs says, gently pulling me away from Ben.

We stand looking at each other and, as usual with Griggs, it’s much too intense.

“So are you going to tell your mother about me?” he asks.

I look around to where Teresa, the hostage from Darling, is crying while her Cadet watches miserably from the bus window.

I shrug. “I’ll probably mention that I’m in love with you.”

He chuckles. “Only you would say that in such a I-think-I’ll-wash-my-hair-tonight tone.”

He leans down and kisses me and I hold on to his shirt, wanting to savour every moment.

I hear a few wolf-whistles but he ignores them and we linger.

My insides are in a million pieces and I feel like someone out of one of those tragic war movies.

The bus driver honks the horn.

“You know on the Jellicoe Road where there’s that tree that looks like an old man bent over?” he asks, holding my face between his hands. It’s this feeling I’ll miss most.

I nod.

“That’s the closest mobile phone coverage to the School.”

“Griggs, they’re waiting,” Santangelo says quietly.

“Let them wait.”

We kiss again and I don’t care who is watching or how late they’ll be.

Slowly he untangles himself from me and turns to the others. “See you, Raffy,” he says, lifting her off the ground in a hug. He looks at Santangelo. “You drive them down at Christmas,” he says. “Promise?”

They grip each other’s hands and hug quickly and then he kisses me again and he’s on the bus. I can see him walking down the aisle, giving someone the finger, and I can imagine what’s being said inside.

Teresa is sobbing beside me and Trini is trying to console her.

“He’s in year eight, Teresa,” I remind her. “That means he’s coming back at least another three times.”

“But just say he forgets about me or meets someone else or pretends I don’t exist.”

I look at her and then at Trini and Raffy.

“Teresa, Teresa. Have we taught you nothing?” Raffy says in an irritated voice. “It’s war. You go in and you hunt him down until he realises that he’s made a mistake.”

Teresa looks hopeful.

“It’s not as if men haven’t gone to war for dumber reasons,” Trini adds.

The Mullet Brothers join us and we watch the bus as it leaves. I can sense everyone’s sadness.

We all walk towards town together.

“You want us to be there tomorrow?” Santangelo asks quietly.

I nod.

“Done.”

I feel tears running down my face and Raffy takes my hand and squeezes it.

“What are you so sad about?” Santangelo says to me. “We’re going to know him for the rest of our lives.”

The car pulls up in front of the house and I stand up. In the photos, when she was seventeen, she had lush black hair, white white skin, and dark blue eyes and a plumpness that spoke of good health. When I was young she had bleached the hair, her skin was pasty, her eyes were always bloodshot, and she was skinny. I can hardly ever remember her eating, just nervously smoking one cigarette after another. I don’t know which image is stronger in my mind but I know I want the girl with the black hair and the glow in her cheeks.

The person who emerges, though, has neither, courtesy of the chemotherapy. She’s even thinner than I remember and I’m amazed that she is actually as young as Hannah and Jude. But I can see from here that her eyes are sharp and bright. She looks beyond the house to the oak tree by the river, a ghost of a smile on her face, and I know she’s imagining him there, like Hannah does on those breezy afternoons when it’s just her and her thoughts. And like I do when he visits me in my dreams.

She smiles at something Jude says and then she walks towards the house, slowly. I stand at the top of the stairs, looking for any sign of me in her face. I wonder how hard it was for her all that time seeing Webb and Narnie’s face stamped on mine and not one single mark of her. When she’s almost at the steps, she notices me and stops. There is wonder in her face, like she can’t believe what she’s seeing. I think she’s expecting the sullen eleven-year-old that she left behind and for a moment I’m scared that she doesn’t know it’s me. But then she starts to cry. Not dramatically but with such sadness, clutching at her throat, looking at me like she can’t believe her eyes. She tries to speak but she isn’t able to. I walk down the steps of the verandah towards her and with shaking hands she holds my face between them, sobbing, “Look at my beautiful girl.”

I take in every inch of her face, the sick pallor of her skin, the dryness of her lips, and I lean forward and I press my lips against hers, like I want to give them colour again. I touch her face and the bristle of her hair that’s growing back. I like the feel of it under my fingertips, like a massage.

“It’s not good for Tate to be outside,” Jude says quietly.

I take her by the hand, up the stairs and inside the house, and she looks around again in awe.

“It’s just like he planned it,” she says in a hushed tone as Hannah comes over and kisses her gently. I introduce her to Santangelo and Raffy and then Jessa comes running into the house, her arm in a sling, beaming that crazy beam of hers.

“I’m late and I didn’t want to be but they had to fix my cast and Mr. Palmer was late picking me up.” She looks at my mother. “Did they tell you about the fire and tunnel and how Griggs broke my arm?”

I take Jessa’s other hand and bring her forward. “This is Jessa McKenzie. She belongs to Fitz.”

My mother looks at Jessa, shaking her head like she can’t believe what she’s seeing. Hannah comes over and helps her into the chair by the window, putting a pillow behind her, and we hover around her.

“Look at our girls,” she says to Hannah and Jude. “How did we get to be so lucky?”

“I think we’ve earned it, Tate.”

Later, she fills the spaces between Hannah’s stories and my imaginings. She tells me about the time my father had a dream about me before I was born. How we were sitting in a tree and he asked me my name and I said it was Taylor.