summer, nine When I was small, almost ten years old, I rowed out with my father to the middle of a lake. It was after midnight--owls prowled, lizards hid, and Mum lay sleeping in the tent beside the water. We''d arrived at the lake in late afternoon, unpacked the car, and set up camp--a big tent for Mum and Dad, a small one of my very own, for me. Mum banged in pegs with a hammer. Dad fluffed around with the fly and guy ropes, swearing. The lake lap-lapped . I clambered over the shoreline, found flat rocks, and skipped them. At dusk, we three stood at the water''s edge.

I held Mum''s hand and we looked out at the lake, the mist, the quiet, fading light. Birds squabbled and settled. The dark dropped in. Then Mum cooked sausages on the fire while Dad blew up our inflatable dinghy with a foot pump. After dinner, we turned marshmallows on our sticks, watching the skin bubble and blacken. The flames crackled and licked. I crawled into them, listening for stories. Mum drank her tea.

Dad pulled out a beer, hissed the can open. Took a long draw. Mum touched my leg, stirring me. "Time for bed," she said. I brushed my teeth with bottled water and spat paste onto the dirt. I kissed Mum and Dad good night, crept into my tent, snugged into my sleeping bag, and went to sleep. Dad woke me with a shake. "Georgia!" he whispered.

"Let''s go have an adventure!" I could see his glassy eyes, his toothy grin in the dark. I stared at him, confused. I''d been dreaming of apples, of underwater trees? I glanced left, at the canvas wall--just a few steps away was Mum. "Don''t wake her," Dad said. "Come on!" There was something in his voice, something sparking. Say yes, the spark said. Dad''s eyes glittered. I sat up, shivered out of my bag, and scooted out of the tent.

Dad handed me a jacket. We tiptoed like burglars over to where the boat waited. We lifted the dinghy, laid it onto the water, and clambered in. Then Dad pushed us out into the nothing. The lake was inky. Gum trees ghosted the shore. The moon ticked across the sky, and the stars blazed. I looked up.

I felt wrapped in it, inside the immensity, the space and silence all around. But I didn''t have the word for that then-- immensity --so I said, "It''s really pretty." Dad beamed. "Isn''t it just?" he said. He rowed us until we were nowhere and everywhere. I dipped my hand into the water, scooped and trickled moonlit drops through my fingers. Dad did too. He rested the oars, leaned over the dinghy side, and looked into the lake.

He looked into it so long, maybe the sky fell into the lake and the lake fell into the sky, because then Dad looked like he wanted the lake to eat him up. He said, "Hey, buddy, you can row back, can''t you? Just head for those trees." And with a plop and a splash, he hopped into the water and swam away. Oh . Dad hadn''t surprised me like this in a while. It had been months of a sort-of calm, a sort-of easy, a sort-of happy. I''d seen Mum kissing Dad in the kitchen and smiling into his eyes, and it had been a long time since she''d done that. But all of Dad was gone now.

I could hear him splish-sploshing through the water. I grabbed the oars and tried to follow the sound. The oars knocked my knees, and I lost one. Then I called and called over the solid lump of lake, but the lake didn''t answer and neither did Dad. I tried to row back with one oar. I slipped in dizzy circles and all I could hear then was the oar clunking at the lake like a spoon on an empty bowl: scrape, scrape, scrape . I slumped against the boat side. I would die out here, I knew it.

Dad had already drowned. He must have. Lakes could swallow you whole, skies too. I huddled, knees to chin, and cried with the mucky hopelessness of going in circles and waiting to drown, cried over the water and up. My tears clanged the branches of the sorrowful trees and hissed at the stars. When I took a breath, I could hear I wasn''t alone. Mum stood, shouting and screaming, from the shore. summer, eighteen 1 Cool air.

Slight breeze and sun, rising. Sydney Harbour lies belly up--made of glisten, glass, and water--and I''m on it, in the kayak Mum and my stepmum Mel gave me for my eighteenth birthday. My body snugs the boat like a seed in its pod. My paddles cut and pull, leaving ripples. Above me, a sea hawk spirals; a gull glides, dipping down, and ahead of me, a duck, flipped over, waggles its feet and rummages the wet for breakfast. The water is polished flat. If I wanted, I could lay my palm on the harbor''s skin and rest it there. No big boats go by this early: no ferries, no sailboats, no water taxis.

Nothing on the surface but the sheen of early light, a distant clump of rowers, and here and there, a bird. Below lies everything else: bull-sharks roaming the muddy dark, fish and cans and plastic bags, fallen boats and rusty fishing rods and all the other lost things. Behind me, my house on the peninsula drifts out of sight. Flanked by mansions, the house is old, tin-roofed, and jittery. The windows stick, white paint flecks from the eaves, and the barnacled dock at the end of the yard is slowly sinking into the seabed. The house belongs to Mel--her family has owned it since houses were being built on the peninsula. It hasn''t been smashed or remade yet. Mum, Mel, and my grandfather rattle around the worn house, clacking and pecking at each other.

Gramps is eighty-four and always losing something--his teeth, his shirts, his shoes, his pills. He spindles the rooms, circling upstairs, downstairs, shouting. It drives Mel crazy. She''s always saying, "Sara, that man scrambles my mind." "Tell him, don''t tell me," Mum always says back. "He''s your dad," Mel says. "He''s his own person, Mel." And round and round they go.

Life in my house is like one of those black-and-white movies where people run fast through one door and out another. Music jangles; everyone''s limbs jerk and bolt. My best friend Tess said once, "Your house is like a carnival ride, George." But I confess: Sometimes I sit in my room, there on the top of the higgledy-piggledy house, stare out the window, and dream of quiet. I paddle west and upriver. I sweep past sleepy coves and boat shacks, past rotting piers and rowing clubs, past apartment buildings and fancy gold-brick houses with their gold-brick swimming pools. I pass parks and yachts and slatted rocks. In time, I turn into a bay and pause.

I trail one paddle, carving a thin path of bubbles, coasting. A single cloud scooches over the sky, teasing rain. A crow calls from a tree. I rest the paddles across the boat. And breathe. My phone buzzes in the front pocket of my life jacket. It''s a message from my father in Seattle. Georgia, it''s Dad.

I have some news. Please call me back. A pulse moves through my body--old, murmuring, like the thrum you feel when tectonic rocks turn over in their sleep. News from Dad could be anything--he''s surprised me before. I don''t like surprises. When did we last speak? My birthday, I think. Dad and I don''t really talk. I flick the message away with my thumb.

The sun eases upwards, gathering heat. Trees wave from the park, by the shoreline. The sound is hush-hush , a hellohellohello , a soft listing in the leaves. I have lain on the grass under those trees before. I''ve sketched their twisting branches, made patterns on the page. I close my eyes. Listen to the slap of water against the side of the kayak, listen to the trees. My phone buzzes again.

I check it. It''s Dad. Again. Georgia. If you could please reply I would appreciate it. It hasn''t even been three minutes. My stomach squeezes. I should have eaten before I left.

Or brought along one of Mum''s granola-bar experiments--Mel always brings them whenever we paddle together. "Always be prepared, George," she says. "What if we get marooned?" My thumb hesitates over the phone. What should I write back? Sorry, Dad, can''t call. Am marooned. Need to use all battery power to Morse-code passing sailors for help. A jellyfish glides under the boat. Or: I''m busy, Dad.

I''m paddling to Hawaii. Call you when I get there. The crow rattles the air from his faraway tree. Or: Dad, listen: I''m in my happy place right now. Do not disturb. I put my phone away without replying. The bay tilts and shivers. It''s too late--I''m disturbed.

The night Dad left me in the middle of a lake, it took a while to get me back. "George! George!" Mum cried from the shore. "Mum! Mum!" I cried from the boat. "Coooo-ee!" called Dad. He must have slithered out of the lake and slopped over to Mum. "Come this way!" Mum waved with her flashlight. She was a reedy voice and a thin pinpoint of light. I wanted to fly over to her like a bird.

But I couldn''t come this way . I swiped at the lake surface. My oar skipped like a stone. The boat wobbled; I screamed and Mum screamed. We woke all the bugs and all the birds. We woke the sleepy moon. The lake heaved and shivered and I couldn''t breathe. I felt crinkly with fear, eaten up.

I couldn''t stop crying. I heard a sound then--a boat, coming. A spotlight lit me up. A shadow sat behind the light. "Hey, darlin'', we''ve got you," the shadow said. His voice was broad, like a pancake. I couldn''t see his face. "Mum!" I cried.

Another shadow at the back said, "It''s okay, it.