Epilogue — Book I

EPILOGUE — BOOK I

 

What We Call Home

 

(Late 2001, Sydney)

 

The house did not feel smaller.

 

It felt quieter.

 

Not in a way that demanded attention, but in the way silence settles after something has been removed carefully, without ceremony. Chairs remained where they had always been. Shoes still gathered by the door. The kettle was filled before anyone thought to ask.

 

Life, outwardly, continued.

 

Geoffrey felt the absence most keenly at night.

There were moments when grief arrived without warning—not violently, but with a weight that pressed inward. One evening, standing in the hallway between rooms that no longer belonged to him, Geoffrey stopped moving altogether.

 

Embong saw it.

 

He crossed the space without hesitation and wrapped his arms around Geoffrey, holding him firmly, without words, without asking whether it was welcome. Geoffrey did not resist. He leaned into it, suddenly and completely, as if the strength he had been rationing finally gave way.

 

For the first time since his parents’ deaths, Geoffrey cried.

 

Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just enough to be heard by someone who was listening.

 

Embong did not let go.

 

Later, Geoffrey said quietly, “I don’t want to lose you too.”

 

“You won’t,” Embong replied.

 

It was not reassurance.
It was fact.

 

After the funeral services were held in the United States, the practical matters followed.

 

Geoffrey did not travel back. He watched a recording later, alone, the sound turned low. He did not recognise most of the faces. When it ended, he closed the laptop and went downstairs, where dinner was already waiting.

 

He was fortunate in one quiet, decisive way.

 

Years earlier, George and Elaine had arranged their affairs carefully. Their wills were lodged under contract with a trustee lawyer in Sydney, the terms clear and deliberately unambiguous. Whatever remained after debts and obligations was set aside for Geoffrey alone, protected from interference until he came of age.

 

It was not a large inheritance.

 

But it was enough.

 

Enough to ensure he would not be left with nothing. Enough to prevent others from deciding his future for him. Enough to allow grief to remain grief, rather than becoming survival.

 

Without that foresight, there would have been little to nothing left.

 

Even so, uncles and aunties appeared in the weeks that followed, speaking too readily about inheritance, already dividing what remained of George’s estate, and what even less Elaine had left behind. They wanted more than there was.

 

Geoffrey wanted nothing from them.

 

He kept his distance, choosing silence over conflict. He did not trust them, and he did not wish to learn how little that trust might be worth.

 

There was one exception.

 

Jenny—his cousin from Kambala—came without noise or expectation. She sat with him, spoke about ordinary things, and asked nothing that required an answer he did not have. She treated Embong with easy warmth, as if his presence required no explanation.

 

“He’s good for you,” she said once, simply.

 

Geoffrey nodded. “He’s family.”

 

She smiled. “I know.”

 

When the sale of the house next door was finalised, Geoffrey packed the last of his belongings himself. He could not afford to keep it, and he did not pretend otherwise. He carried boxes across the fence rather than down the street, choosing the shorter distance without comment.

 

No one questioned it.

 

Inside the Awan house, space was made without discussion. Not rearranged—made. A drawer cleared. A place assumed at the table. A chair that no longer felt temporary.

 

Geoffrey realised then what frightened him most was not loss.

 

It was the thought of having to start over alone.

 

That fear faded.

 

Because Embong did not move away.
Because Delima did not ask how long he would stay.
Because Awan spoke to him as if the decision had already been made.

 

Family, Geoffrey understood at last, was not guaranteed by blood.

 

It was proven by who stayed.

 

And because his parents had protected him even in their absence—and because this family had chosen him in the present—Geoffrey was not alone.

 

They were brothers.

 

Not by accident.
Not by force.
But by choice.

 

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