Tolls, Tears, and Google Maps

The airport had become a revolving door of goodbyes. First Anth, disappearing through the terminal for his pending trial in Melbourne, that familiar walk toward automatic doors and clinical confinement. Then, several days later, Shea. His departure carried a different flavour: not temporary medical obligation but a new chapter entirely, a season of living and working in Sydney that would stretch the distance between him and Sophie into something more permanent than a few weeks.

Two farewells in quick succession left Sophie and Sal lighter in number but not in spirit. They had each other, and they had an appointment in Brisbane that had been a long time coming.

Google Maps, however, had other ideas about how they'd get there. The route it charted read less like navigation and more like punishment. Three tolls on the way in, the kind of unwelcome surprises that pinged through the car like a financial countdown. The algorithm dragged them through side streets and back streets, past suburbs neither of them recognised, through intersections that felt improvised rather than planned. Sophie and Sal exchanged glances that oscillated between disbelief and laughter as each new turn revealed another questionable directional choice.

Somehow, against all reasonable expectation, they arrived on time. The appointment was kept, whatever anxiety the journey had generated dissolving into the relief of actually being where they needed to be. The return trip proved marginally kinder. A single toll this time, Google apparently having exhausted its appetite for financial extraction on the outbound leg.

They collected Chia from Grannie and Grandad's on the way back, the dog's unbridled enthusiasm at their arrival a tonic after a day of navigational chaos and farewell residue. With Chia loaded and bags packed, the three of them pointed north once more. Grammy's driveway waited, that familiar patch of concrete that had become our default base in Queensland. The bus would settle there again, and life would reorganise itself around this smaller, quieter configuration: mother, daughter, and one very happy dog, finding their rhythm while the men in their lives pursued their separate paths elsewhere.Leggi altro