by Sofie Laguna
Ray was my dad; he rode a horse called Silver and knew how to use a gun. It was the only thing he had shown me. He couldn’t show me anything else. ‘No,’ I told Aunty Rita. ‘I don’t want to speak to him.’
59.
The nurse passed me my baby, wrapped in a white blanket. I looked into his sleeping face. I was holding the middle of the warm world. There was nothing else to need. ‘My baby, my little baby, Joe Michael.’
When Aunty Rita saw the baby she cried. ‘Oh, Justine, Justine, he is beautiful. My God. How are we going to do this?’
I kissed Joe’s cheek again and the smell of him was clean and new and sweet. The need for anything to change or be different disappeared and all that I needed was baby Joe Michael. He was my family. Just as the water that flowed between the banks of the Murray knew its direction, I knew mine. I held Joe Michael warm and close against me. I kissed his forehead. Joe Michael opened his eyes. They were made of warm grey light, and in them I could see beyond my own reflection to my dream.
‘That’s early for a first smile,’ said the nurse. ‘You don’t see that every day. Aren’t you lucky?’
I looked up at her, into her eyes. ‘Yes,’ I answered.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Clare Renner, Carmie Isaacs, Kim Kane, Sue Walsh, Richard Walsh, Gail Jones, Alec Patric, Jane Palfreyman, Christa Munns, Ali Lavau and Elise Jones.