Free Lessons in Letting Go by Corinne Grant Page A

It was etched into my memory and summed up the essence of my little sister.
    I wish I could say that sentimentality was my only reason for taking that top. I know I believed that at the time; I even chastised myself for being silly and I knew that Wendy would roll her eyes if she saw what I was doing. But when I was out in the shed, before I stashed it away in my car, I’m ashamed to say that I tried it on. The only thing sadder than a twelve-year-old trying to look cool is a thirty-year-old woman trying to look like a twelve-year-old trying to look cool. When I came back into the bedroom, I tried to act as nonchalant as possible, but I’m sure there was a glittery lunacy to my expression that was betraying me.
    The day was not going well. I’d been trying to ignore it, but everything felt wrong. There was a pounded-down grief in the room that was almost suffocating me and I couldn’t find where it was coming from. I kept carting things out to my car and taking deep breaths of hot summer air but nothing helped. It felt like there was something in the room that was unspeakably sad and while I was scared to find it, I was equally scared that I wouldn’t.
    When the packing ended, my sister and I parted on gruff terms. She was pissed off with my sentimentality and I was pissed off with myself as well. I didn’t tell her that though; she was my sister. I blamed her instead. We wound up having a terrible fight and I left, each of us vowing never to speak to the other again. At that stage neither of us knew that promise would only last a week.
    Driving back to Melbourne I could feel my hands shaking on the steering wheel. There was something terribly wrong. I didn’t seem to be able to breathe. I counted down the kilometres until I passed the old pine forest that marked the edge of the boundary of my childhood world. I pulled over to the side, staggered from my car and collapsed in the grass with snot pouring down my face. I had never felt so physically torn apart by grief. I couldn’t move. I just lay in the long grass, face down, hidden from the road by my car, and screamed into the dirt. It was like my bones had gone. I had lost my family home, I had lost my sister, I had lost my boyfriend.
    When I was able, I got back in the car, drove a little further to the edge of the Hume Weir, got out and sat by the shore, my face swollen and red and just a little bit covered in grass. I was looking for another turtle. I wanted to see something special. I wanted to see something self-contained. I wanted to see something I hadn’t ruined.

Chapter Seven
    I had arrived home late after the trip to Corryong, dragging one box into the house and leaving the rest in the car. I cleared a space on my bed and lay down amongst newspapers, coats and what probably used to be a sandwich. I knew I should finish emptying out the car, I knew I should make some room in the house for the boxes that were about to come in, I knew I should get whatever wet thing I was lying on out from underneath me, and yet I couldn’t do any of it. All I could do was lie on my side and stare at the wardrobe door, thinking about the crap lurking on the other side. I was a complete failure.
    I thought about ringing Thomas and asking for his help but stopped myself just in time. Maybe Adam was right, maybe I was relying on Tom too much. Then again, every day that I didn’t call him, I felt bad for abandoning him. I rubbed my eyes. This was a quandary I was in no fit state to consider. Even on a good day I would have had trouble with it, let alone on a day like today, when I was a floppy mess and I wasn’t sure why. I rolled onto my back, stared at the ceiling and took stock of what might be causing me to feel so bad. There was the loss of the family home, there was the stuff in the car, there was the stuff in the flat, there was the fight with my sister, and yet the problem didn’t seem to be any of that. It felt like something bigger and scarier. The problem was that