A long time to get home
Somewhere two kids are leaving the kitchen. Somewhere, a mother has given instructions. Can you two do a job for me? Go and pick up the milk from the gate. It’s one of those days where the Southerly has swept the sky clean. You’re wearing denim dungarees. The label on the front says SKIN JEANS. It’s one of the first pairs of words I learned how to read. We’re both in soft leather sandals. We have never been to the end of the drive by ourselves before. There are two cattle stops to cross: their bronzed metal hot from the sun, gaps between the bars wide enough to fall through.
You go first. Wait for me to cross, because you’ve been across the top cattle stop before, with your brothers. Go fast, don’t look down. I pretend I’m not scared. Out in the paddock, bees find their hives, again and again. You lead us far away from the hives, through the long grass on the other side of the drive. I hold your hand when we get to the part where we can hear the bees. We walk past the mānuka forest, where the big boys have made their forts. They play War Game there sometimes, and we’re not allowed, because we’re too little. The boys come back with helmets made of barley grass, and secret codes that they use to talk about us. But we don’t care, because we know each other’s favourite colour and have known it our whole lives, since we first decided what our favourite colours were and got matching Mickey Mouse watches (yours: blue, mine: red).
We are going to the end of the drive for the first time. We’re getting the milk for the Weetbix and Quik. The driveway is rocky and dusty. Summer mountain air scent of blueweed and thyme. Cicadas sing, then shed their skin. Cicadas sing, then shed their skin. They live underground for seven years, before they get to sing their song in the sun. We arrive. Six milk bottles nestle in the white crate. We each lift one end of the handle. It’s so heavy, it takes a long time to get home. We have to keep stopping, because the milk is so heavy. We have a rest and then start again.
It takes a long time to get home.
Annabel Wilson lives in Ōhinehou Lyttelton. Her writing has been published and performed in Aotearoa and overseas. Her books include Aspiring Daybook (Mākaro Press, 2018), and dusk & us (Ghost City Press, 2024). She has a PhD in Creative Writing and is a regular performer on the spoken word circuit.