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.
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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.
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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
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G A L L O W A Y
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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.