All the women in my family are destined to drown. For centuries, the water has claimed the Lavender women one by one.Except for me.

My grandfather did not believe in the Lavender curse. Not even when he found my mother face down in the river. But my sister and I were petrified of water. My sister and I believed. We refused to bathe and held our breath when it looked like rain. Once a week, we dabbed at our dirty faces with half dry cloths, our bodies trembling. One morning, we found my sister collapsed at the kitchen sink, mouth blue, lungs clogged with watery dish soap.

That was the day my grandfather became a believer. We fled to a barren land that smelled like ash. But the fear followed.

I rarely played outdoors, too nervous to exert myself because I was afraid of my own thirst. I carefully measured half-cups of water before sipping slowly, my mouth so dry it felt like I was choking on feathers.

I steered away from puddles while my friends stomped through them, kicking up water with their gumboots, laughing as they did it. One night it rained, and I stayed indoors for four days, clenching my jaw so tight I cracked my teeth.

One summer afternoon, I watched the neighbourhood kids play cricket from the safety of the kitchen window.

Quietly, I asked my grandfather, “How long will we live like this?”

“Be thankful you are living,” he said.

“This is not living, Papa.”

I’ll always remember the look on his face. I believe it would have hurt less if I’d hit him. Fat tears rolled down my cheeks, and my grandad grasped my shoulder so tight I yelped. “Don’t cry…” he cautioned, “You might…”

Drown.

Imagine, drowning in my own tears! How fitting for the last of the Lavender women. But for my grandfather, I vowed they would be my last.

For years, I remained at that window, thirsty for everything. My world shrunk until it contained only him and my fear.

Then the Great Drought came. Water was rationed, the rain never fell, and my grandfather couldn’t have been more pleased. “You watch,” he said. “This is a good thing. For us.”

I watched. Everything green and golden turn to ashes, and blackbirds fell from trees. “It’s a good thing,” he repeated.

But I wondered.

I was nineteen when I lost my grandfather. On the day I buried him, there was not a cloud in the whole damn sky.
And for the first time in my life, I wished it would rain.

The Boy and the Garden

When the Drought ended, the boy arrived. His hair smelled like soil, and he breathed life into all my bareness. And you wouldn’t believe this, but his last name meant, “One hundred springs.”

One morning, he pointed at the barren land that smelled of ash and said, “Let’s grow a garden. Because to plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”

And with him, I did.

He pressed a seed into my palm and said, “inside this seed is a golden elm tree folded a million times. Go and plant it.”

And I did. I planted tulips and peonies, lacy snow drops, and seeds that would become soft tulips nodding in the sun.

But then he insisted, “Now you must water them.”

And I said, “I can’t.”

“But you must, for the garden will die without it.”

“No, I really can’t,” I pleaded, heart stretched tight with panic, “Perhaps you could water it without me?”

He said nothing. And I watched from the window while he watered the garden, alone.

On our fifth anniversary, he called to me from the garden under a greying sky, “Darling, won’t you leave your window?”

“I can’t,” I insisted, jaw clenched tight, “For it looks like rain.”

On our tenth anniversary, he stopped watering the garden.

Two years later, he left.

I spent weeks kneeling in our rotting garden, paralysed with loss.

My husband. My garden. My family.

Gone.

The water. The water did this.

The water took it all.

Hot rage fired through my veins until I burned with it. All my life, I avoided the water. All my life, I had been so careful! So good.

If the water wants what it wants. Then, it could finally have me.

So, I drove to the Mornington Peninsula.

And all the way there, I wept.

There it was. The beach. The water.

The fear.

I pulled my wedding dress on in the parking lot and stood hatefully before the silent waves.

“All my life you have called me,” I spoke to the sea. “Today I answer that call.”

I plunged into the icy water until the waves crashed over my head, and I began to sink. A flurry of bubbles cascaded out the side of my mouth, my last anchor to land. It was beautiful in a way, the creamy lace of my dress billowing around in  the cold, dark sea. I thought of my mother. My sister. The watery bloodline of my family, ending right here.

Then the water spoke, sounding like a wave crashing,“I know you, don’t I?”

“Yes. You know me,” I said. “I am the last of the Lavender’s.”

“You are Madeline,” it said, “And you are early.”

The base of my throat burned, and just as my lungs began to splinter, the water lifted me back to the surface, declaring, “It is not your time.”

Bitterly, I laughed, saltwater dripping from my mouth. “But it is my time,” I told it, treading water in my ruined dress, “I have nothing left. I have lost my husband. And I have lost my garden.”

But the water did not answer.

A wave came, pushing me back to shore until I stood dripping on sand. In all my life, I had never felt so empty. A seagull cried, and storm clouds gathered. Instinctively, I ran.

But the water asked, “Why don’t you stay?”

The words, “I can’t” nearly spilled from my lips, and I ached for the safety of my window. But the truth is, a lifetime of safety had never once kept me safe.

So, I collapsed on the sand, watched the sky darken.

A raindrop hit my collarbone. My eyebrow. My lips.

All night long the rain fell and fell. I did not expect to survive the night, but I when I woke up the next morning, I was alive, soaked to the skin. It was glorious.

I came back a week later, scooping up the hem of my wedding dress before sneaking into the sea. I crashed through foamy waves until my toes could not touch the bottom. Then I dove in.

“Back again so soon?” The ocean asked.

“You don’t understand,” I explained again. “I have lost my husband. I have lost our garden. And I don’t believe I will ever heal.”

“Do you want to?”

“No.”

A wave nudged me back to shore, “Keep going until you do.”

Daily I grieved, and daily I returned to the water. One dark evening, I slipped below the surface yet again, and when the ocean spoke, it was furious.

“Stop this,” it said. “I told you. It is not your time.”

“But I have lost my love.”

“Find another.”

“I have lost my garden.”

“Grow another.”

Enraged, I rose to the surface. “What’s the point when I am only going to die?”

“Everyone dies.”

“It’s different for me,” I snapped, thinking of all the lost Lavender women, “Different for us.”

“No,” it replied, “it really isn’t.”

“You have cursed me,” I screamed at the waves. “You have taken things I did not know you could take.”

And the water said, “I am not a curse. I never was. Now, watch and listen.”

I found myself lying in a damp head on the sand, waves breaking over my feet. Then I felt the heavy grip of my grandfather’s hand on my shoulder. A moment later, he was gone.

I plucked a fire lily from my garden and left it on my sister’s grave. I watched fresh soil fall from my husband’s hands. I saw flowers bloom and wither, and stars fall from the sky.

But through it all, I saw the water. Steady as blood.

I saw waves crash and fall and crash again. The glorious endlessness of it.

The water repeated, “I am not a curse. I am a promise. Generations come and go, but forever I remain.”

And I finally began to understand.

“I am death, and I am life,” the water told me. “I am centuries, I am new. I am loss, and I am peace. I am sorrow, and I am song.”

When I finally got to my feet, something had shifted but I didn’t know what.

The next morning, I returned. But this time, I remained on the shore, skipping stones across the water. A cormorant soared, and its wings seemed to stretch across the whole sky.

The ocean whispered, “Keep going.”

Twenty years later

One golden morning, Madeline Lavender plunged into the sea while her children played barefoot cricket on the sun warmed shore.

“Keep going,” the water said, sounding like an old friend.

One day the water would call her by name, but she was not afraid. She had not been afraid for years. The water was right. It was never a curse. Just a promise. A reminder.

Death was coming.

Death would always come.

But not today.

Today, she would live.

She floated in the water with her arms stretched out, smiling.