Since Coco’s birth, we’d lived in suspended joy.
We swam.
We ate.
We laughed.
We daydreamed.
And every life achievement—Conner’s present for Coco, Pippa’s three-tiered sandcastle, and Galloway’s many creations—was recorded faithfully on our video diary.
We stored memory after memory.
Hungry to remember our present while trying to forget the past.
Coconut was our future now, and she’d been born in the wilds of Fiji. We’d accepted that if we hadn’t been found after two years, the chances of ever being noticed were slim.
It gave us freedom in a way to let go. To mourn finally. To grieve a life we would never see again.
Coconut excelled.
I had no idea if the pace of her development was normal, but she exploded into personality and opinions, vocal and stubborn.
At six months old, she’d already learned how to roll over and face plant in the sand. She constantly grabbed my food if I ate with her in my lap and could sit up unsupported on her little baby rug.
Her coos and babbles reached operatic levels and she held entire conversations with Pippa and Conner when they took her to the other side of the island so Galloway and I could finally have some one on one.
After so many months of healing (probably more than if I’d been in a hospital), I finally wanted sex.
To G, it’d been an eternity. I knew because he told me the first night we resumed our sexual relationship. He didn’t last long and barely pleasured me with a few thrusts before pulling out and spilling on the sand.
I teased him, saying his libido didn’t match his old age. That he was as potent and horny as a fifteen-year-old. But secretly, I was awed that even now, after my body had changed and silvery stretch marks decorated skinny hips and my breasts were no longer as perky, he still wanted me.
It made my world complete.
Utterly.
Totally.
Complete.
So it made the disaster that much harder to bounce back from.
We woke to smoke.
The cloying claustrophobia of burning alive.
“Get out! Everybody run!” Galloway was the first to spring into action. Hauling me from our bed, he stuffed Coco into my arms and shoved me from our home.
Stumbling in shock, I gasped as I turned to face our bungalow.
Fire.
The roof is on fire.
Conner appeared, dragging a panicked Pippa to join me on the sand. “What’s going on?” Pippa coughed as heavy black smoke surrounded us.
I couldn’t answer.
G.
Where’s G?
“Galloway!”
Coco screamed as the flames turned into an inferno, licking down the walls.
Galloway appeared, salvaging supplies from the burning building. Instead of saving himself, he did his best to save our world.
My phone with all our memories soared past.
My notebooks.
Our clothes.
Stored food and painstakingly gathered supplies.
“Hold her.” Squashing screaming Coco into Pippa’s arms, I sprinted forward to help.
Galloway vanished inside only to re-appear with his arms full of stuff. “Estelle, get the hell away.”
“No! I want to help.”
The roar of the fire whipped our words, drowning us in smoke and orange light.
Throwing the items out the door, his large hands landed on my shoulders. He shoved me backward. “Stay out. I’m almost done. Take the kids to the water’s edge. Just in case.”
“What about you? I won’t leave without you.”
“Do as I damn well say, Estelle.” Turning, he disappeared into the smoke-snarling abode.
“Stelly, come on!” Conner called, already carting Pippa and Coco toward the sea. The heat from the building charred the small hairs on my arms, singeing my eyebrows.
“I’m not leaving without Galloway!”
But I also couldn’t go inside. Already, smoke inhalation made me cough and splutter, blinded by the vibrantly destroying flames.
Galloway threw more belongings out and vanished one last time. When he returned, he held the blankets from our beds and charged onto the beach. Throwing the blankets onto the pile he’d saved, he ordered, “Help me get this farther from the blaze.”
Together, we dragged and kicked and carried our now sand-covered and mostly ruined supplies as far as we could before our lungs gave up and coughing rendered us useless.
Stumbling down the beach, we stood with the tide lapping our ankles as we watched yet another home be taken from us.
“How...how did this happen?” Tears ran down my face.
“It’s windy tonight.” Galloway’s voice lost the silky English rasp, becoming croaky and smoke-scratched. “Some of the embers from our fire must’ve caught an updraft. They landed on the roof.”
I pieced the rest together.
The embers landed on the flax and the reaction was instantaneous. Dried and brittle fronds—after a year of being beaten by the sun—didn’t stand a chance.
Our bungalow went up in a whoosh of fiery gold, taking with it so many hours of hard work and memories.
The stars and moon wept with us as BB-FIJI burned to the ground.
As dawn approached, we didn’t move.
We couldn’t move.
We stayed vigil, covered in soot and confounded with how we would start again.
We’d been so happy.
We’d done so well.
Now...we had to start all over again.
.............................
SEPTEMBER
I’d like to say our deep well of eternal optimism kept us afloat.
But it was hard.
Coconut became a terror as her motor skills increased, and I couldn’t leave her for a moment.
Conner and Pippa took on additional chores as well as their usual hunting and gathering. Galloway layered us all with extra responsibility—turning into a task master intent on rebuilding even before the ashes were cold.
Galloway had sunk low the morning after our home turned to cinder. He’d vanished into the forest, nursing his sadness and no doubt raging at how unfair life was to those who’d already endured so much.
I worried about him (how could I not?), but I didn’t chase him. I knew when someone needed their own space, just like I knew Conner and Pippa were adaptable enough to return to sleeping beneath the stars on their sandy beds and not complain.
They understood no one could've predicted or planned for this. The fire pit had been far enough away from the hut (or so we’d thought) not to be a problem. It was no one's fault. No one to blame but the sea breeze and destroying fate.
We’d sampled a better way of life.
But we’d roughed it for long enough that we were adaptable. We mourned what we’d lost, but we didn’t die. We begrudged it being taken from us, but we’d survived worse.
At least this time, no one was hurt and we could start rebuilding straightaway.
Galloway’s limp didn’t hold him back, and he used charcoal pencils to sketch a schematic that wouldn’t just give us a replacement but a small castle for our island domain.
We didn’t have many assets but time was one of them.
And I had no doubt we would triumph over this new adversity.
Once Galloway had rid himself of anguish, he didn’t waste a single second. He hugged his children, made love to me, and gathered his strength to start.
I did what I could.
I hauled and chopped. I obeyed and listened. Conner became Galloway’s foreman and together they worked every daylight hour.
Pippa and I kept them fed and watered. In between entertaining an inquisitive baby, we plaited new roof panels and wove flooring. We gathered vines and shredded the yellow flower bark for rudimentary fixings.
Coconut was my prison guard and my first priority was being a mother. However,
somehow we all pulled together and put aside our melancholy to rise from the ashes.
We would be okay.
We would have a home again.
Because we were a family.
And family worked together.
.............................
OCTOBER
October brought an early onslaught of the rainy season.
Our reservoirs were full to bursting and the salt grime that permanently etched our skin was washed away with fresh water bliss.
However, our new home wasn’t complete, and we spent nearly a month shivering at night, soaked to the bone, while only Coco had the luxury of a hastily created lean-to covering her crib.
Our spirits were down.
We didn’t speak much.
We worked from dawn to dusk, and sometimes, well past midnight.
But it was worth it.
Because slowly, ever so slowly, walls soared once again and our new home manifested from nothing.
Our depression finally took a backseat as, day-by-day, we looked forward to a new beginning.
All over again.
Chapter Fifty-Four
...............................................
G A L L O W A Y
......
NOVEMBER
IT TOOK LONGER than I wanted.
It took more effort, more energy, more strife than I could afford.
But on the 24th of November, we finally moved into our new bungalow.
Not that it could be classified as a bungalow anymore.
I’d done my best.
I’d pulled on every trick I’d been taught, every architectural secret known to man.
I’d given my all for my family.
It still had flaws, but I was proud of what I’d accomplished. Proud that I’d taken the time to chip away dovetail, dowels, and finger joints so planks slotted directly into the joists instead of relying on rope and luck. I couldn’t use the fancier, and frankly, better joints like mortise because of my lack of tools.
I would’ve willingly killed (okay, no I wouldn’t because I’d never murder again) but I would’ve sold anything for an adequate tool-set. It would’ve made my life a lot easier and meant I could’ve got Estelle and the kids off the cold sand sooner.
But that was in the past now.
The fire.
The destruction.
All gone.
Now, we had something better.
I’d built something of stamina and stature. I’d created something that would last.
“Galloway, it’s incredible. Beyond anything I could’ve imagined.” Estelle bounced Coconut on her hip, her eyes wide with wonder as I led her through the new place.
I’d learned from my past mistakes. Instead of using the helicopter rotor blades as our main support (limited to the size and lack of numbers) I’d chosen natural resources.
If a palm tree could withstand hurricane winds and bear the weight of heavy fruits, it was good enough for me to use as our skeleton structure.
It’d taken me weeks, constantly sharpening our barely capable and blunt axe, to hack down eight palm trees. Blisters popped and re-formed on my hands and I spent many nights with Estelle as she tended to my wounds the best she could.
Getting hurt was a part of building. I was used to it. Pity she wasn’t and I caused her such worry.
Conner had been a great help digging the holes required to insert our structural support. We dug and dug until I said it was enough. And once the palm trees were wrangled into position (with help from all of us), we spent the next week mixing mud and twigs with rainwater to create the best slurry I could to cement them in place.
It wasn’t bombproof—it probably wasn’t even typhoon proof—but it would remain standing until something worse came along to tear it from us.
Once we’d erected the main walls, the effect was a long cabin, giving plenty of space to segment into areas of use.
I didn’t just want a bungalow anymore.
I didn’t want a shack on the beach.
This was our home now, and our home deserved to be worthy of luxury.
It’d taken more time, but I’d created a lounge, a kitchen (or, at least, it would be if we had running water and cooking facilities), two bedrooms for Pippa and Conner on one side of the lounge and a bedroom and nursery for Estelle, Coconut, and me on the other.
I’d even made a deck at the front so we had somewhere to sit without sand creeping up our ass-cracks. But my best invention had to be the oil drum (salvaged from the storm so many months ago) that was now laboured into position with walls for privacy and a carved funnel with holes sticking from its side to act as an outdoor shower.
I’d placed the contraption at the back of the house where the run off would feed the palm trees and the drum would catch as much rainfall as possible.
We wouldn’t be able to use it too often, but at least this way, we had a chance to wash off the salt-sticky ocean, even if a rainstorm wasn’t convenient.
Overall, I was happy with my creation. Happy but scared that it could all disappear again.
At least, it won’t go up in flames.
That’d been the first thing I’d done. I’d buried our old fire pit and relocated it farther down the beach. For extra precaution, I also erected a wall between the flames necessary for our survival and our new property.
If the wind was strong enough and luck was nasty enough, a spark could once again land on our roof.
But that was life.
It was full of risks.
We’d done everything we could to prevent it, and we couldn’t worry over something we couldn’t predict.
With the offcuts of timber, I’d also created stools to use around the fire so we could sit while eating rather than sprawl.
We’d left civilisation behind. Yet somehow, we’d created our version of it here.
There were no detritus of life—it was all reused.
The longing I’d had for table and chairs was gone—we had our own.
The desire to watch TV had vanished—we had stories and imagination.
And the drive to rule my own business, to give back to a world I’d failed, and prove to myself I was a better person no longer controlled me because I had a woman and children and they’d redeemed me.
I’d donated everything I was to those I loved.
I would die for them.
I would survive for them.
And nothing was better than that.
Nothing.
.............................
DECEMBER
The turtles came and went.
As did Christmas.
Once again, we ignored the holiday but celebrated the arrival of our flippered friends.
All of us spent the night by their shelled sides as they dug nests, laid eggs, and hauled themselves back to the ocean.
Estelle and I made love (it was almost a tradition now) in the ocean where we’d finally given into desire for the first time. We spent the night away from the kids, confident they would watch over Coco, and watched the sunrise in each other’s arms.
As we strolled back along the beach to our home and resemblance of civility, we found a turtle who’d sacrificed her life for her offspring.
The leathered beast had died only a metre from the sea. She lay there pristine, so perfect and wizened, it seemed she’d only slipped into a nap.
But we knew.
Just like we knew if the kids were hurt. Or the winds had changed. Or the temperature was hotter than last month. Our perception was so much more sensitive, and we understood sleep hadn’t taken her but death.
I didn’t look at Estelle, but we’d been given a dilemma.
We had a turtle.
We could live because of its death.
We could eat her flesh.
Use her shell.
She would have our eternal gratitude.
I didn’t know if Estelle shared my thoughts, but it didn’t matter.
Becau
se that was all they were.
Thoughts.
We wouldn’t desecrate such a magnificent creature.
Wordlessly, we each grabbed a flipper and hauled her bulk into the sea. She floated serenely, slowly taken by the gentle currents.
Her body would feed sharks and fish.
She would vanish to give others another day.
But not us.
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JANUARY
Pippa turned ten.
For her birthday gifts, we all contributed random things for her bedroom. Estelle made her a set of coconut vases for knickknacks and keepsakes. Conner carved a sunburst on the wall above her leaf-stuffed bed, and I wove a miniature hammock to house Puffin and Mr. Whisker Wood.
The day was good.
But the rest of the month wasn’t.
Things were changing.
Things we couldn’t afford to change.
We ate the best we could.
We stayed as varied as possible and constantly tried new things (sometimes to the detriment of our digestive systems), but we attempted to get as many nutrients as we could to combat the side effects of living on an island.
We’d lasted longer than I thought.
But it was inevitable.
We were all so skinny, becoming slowly malnourished.
We were all salt-covered and sun-beaten, switching from surviving to suffering.
Internally, our bodies had reached their limits.
I grew woozy if I stood too fast. I struggled to swallow.
I had vicious food cravings for things my body needed: red meat for iron, bread for carbohydrates, and sugar for glucose.
I grew tired more easily, and we’d begun to nap longer in the afternoon beneath our umbrella tree.
Even my hair felt different, less full and like straw.
Conner and Pippa continued to grow, and Coco exploded in height and energy daily. But Estelle admitted late one night that her periods had finally stopped.
That our fear of another pregnancy was over because her body no longer had the nutrition required to ovulate.
We treated it as a success.
We had sex, and I didn’t pull out.
We laughed and said nature had finally given us contraception.
We ignored what it truly meant.
We loved our island and new way of life.
But it didn’t love us.
It was slowly killing us.