Page 113 of Loving Wild

“Booze,” he calls back. “I feel like celebrating,” he adds without looking back.

“What are we celebrating?” Sam asks as I head back to the truck to grab my purse.

“Making new memories apparently.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I’m not sure, he just got a bit emotional when we pulled up. Told me about his dad buying this place, and a story about his mum.”

“Yeah, all the boys get a bit like that when they come here . . .” She pauses as we both climb into Zac’s truck, which has bigger tyres, and is therefore even higher and harder to get into than Gabe’s.

“This was their mum’s favourite place,” Sam says as she stares into the reverse camera and we back out onto the road. “It’s where she came to die.”

“Oh shit,” I gasp out my words, feeling winded by hers.

“Yeah,” Sam says, finally looking at me.

“We all try to get together here as often as possible. Jackie hates it and is always on at Joe to sell, but he’ll never do that. It’s already been transferred into the kids’ names. They own it between them.”

“I can’t believe she’d try and make him sell something that holds so many memories for them all.”

Sam shrugs as she drives us across the bridge that takes us back to the Victorian side and into the country town of Yarrawonga, where most of the shops, bars, pubs, and restaurants are.

“What’s that word you came up with a couple of months ago? What you called the bloke who swung at Dani in the pub?”

“A cunthole?”

“That’s what Jackie is. A cunthole, the most offensive word I know.”

I remain silent at that. Grinding my teeth together at the anger I feel towards that woman making it difficult to speak.

We pull up outside a Woolies supermarket, the carpark packed.

“Right, we have four fridges and a freezer to fill with enough food and drink to last twenty of us four days.”

Each family had chipped in two hundred and fifty dollars for food and drink for the weekend, but Gabe had also arranged for a delivery of meat to come tonight from a mate of his who now had a farm with an on-site butchers shop out this way.

After an hour of filling up two trollies worth of food, we took it back to the car, then headed back inside and filled two trollies with booze.

My liver already groaning at the weekend ahead.

* * *

When we get backto the house, there are two cars, and another truck pulled onto the nature strip, and when we walk inside, we’re greeted with music playing and the sound of talking and laughter.

Despite being thirty years old, the house’s interior is modern and has obviously had more recent updates.

The floors are all tiled with large white porcelain tiles, and the walls painted an off-white. There’s a huge, sweeping Victorian ash, timber staircase, and a galleried landing above us.

There are double doors to both the left and the right of the hallway and a single door right before we hit the huge, open plan living, dining, and family room.

Silver Chair are being blasted from overhead speakers, and the floor to ceiling stacker doors have been pulled all the way back to reveal a decked pool area, a small jetty with a boat moored next to it, and a boat ramp off to the side.

I look past all of this, my eyes landing on the unhindered views of Lake Mulwala the house affords. It’s stunning, and I instantly feel at peace, something that always happens when I’m near any body of water. Whether it be the bay, the open ocean of the back beaches, or a manmade lake like the one before me, I get the same sensation wash over me, an instant calm. It’s why I always go to the beach when I need to think, or just to clear my mind. It’s something that I’ve never got used to, and it kind of freaks me out every time it happens, always leading me to thoughts of past lives and reincarnations.

“Ren, you with us?” I look up to see Dani in front of me, her hands on my shoulders.

“Where’d you go?” she asks with a smile as my eyes meet hers.