Grace Davenport had two choices, but she wasn’t ready to choose either.
She eased her foot off the accelerator to buy time as the road she’d been on since dawn climbed the sharp incline of a hill. When her car reached the spot where the black bitumen curved over the crest, there could be no turning back.
In her rear-view mirror she caught a last glimpse of the rural town she’d driven through nestled on the edge of the treeless Monaro plain. It didn’t matter if her car held some of her most precious possessions, that her Sydney apartment was rented or that a colleague was running her interior stylist business, a single U-turn would send her back through Cooma’s wide main street, then on to Canberra and finally home.
Her hand left the steering wheel to hover over the indicator so she could pull over. Home. The pitch in her stomach reminded her she no longer had such a place. The parents she’d loved were gone. Her every dream had been blown away by the wind that had scattered their ashes over the pale sand of their favourite beach. First kidney cancer had stolen her mother, and then her father’s grief had triggered a heart attack. All it had taken was seven days to dismantle a close-knit family and a lifetime of happiness.
Grace secured her hand back around the steering wheel. She’d driven this road on purpose and the hill crest she’d been waiting for was seconds away. It was time. She had to make a decision: return to the world she knew or drive forwards into the unknown.
Chest tight, she held her breath as her car topped the rise. Everything seemed to still. There was no grief, no loss, just the first look at a distant vista of rugged peaks. Last winter when she’d made this drive with her parents the Snowy Mountains had worn a mantle of pristine snow. Now they were bathed in golden sunlight. Serene, rugged and immovable, they called to her.
Without thought, she pressed her foot on the accelerator and sped down the hill. It was impossible to reclaim what she’d lost, but she could do all that she could to live the life that had been cut short for her parents. As much as her mother and father had enjoyed the beach house she’d bought for them, they’d planned to spend their twilight years in a small town that reminded them of their English village childhoods. She scanned the mountains that now appeared a hazy blue green. On the far-off western slopes, they’d found the perfect place––a little book town called Bundilla.
She settled deeper into her seat and, keeping her eyes on the peaks, readied herself for a long and winding drive. Turning back was no longer an option…
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