Improvised Steps

"The house you grew up in never forgets what you were. It just waits to remind you every time you walk through the door."

The gravel announced my arrival before I was ready for it.

That familiar crunch beneath the tyres, the sound of coming home that wasn't quite home—Mum's house, Dad's house, the place I'd grown up but never felt I belonged. I pulled into the driveway too fast, the car jerking slightly as I braked, and sat there for a moment with the engine still running.

I shouldn't have come here.

The thought arrived fully formed, too late to act on. I was already here, already visible through the front windows, already committed to whatever was about to happen. Through the lace curtains I could see movement—small shapes, probably the children, probably running to see who'd arrived.

I turned off the engine. Grabbed my bag, my keys, fumbled with the door handle. The afternoon sun was lower than I'd expected, the light turning golden, and I realised I'd lost track of time somewhere between the café and here. How long had I been driving? It felt like minutes, but the angle of the shadows said otherwise.

The front path stretched before me, the same cracked concrete I'd walked a thousand times. I moved quickly—too quickly, probably, but I couldn't seem to slow down. My legs had their own momentum, carrying me toward the door, toward my children, toward the only thing that still made sense.

The screen door was unlocked. I pushed through without knocking—I never knocked here, this was my parents' house, I didn't need permission—and the familiar smell hit me: gravy and garlic and that particular mustiness that old houses accumulate, layers of years compressed into the walls.

"Where are they?"

My voice came out sharper than I'd intended, bouncing off the hallway walls. I heard movement from the lounge room, the scramble of small feet on floorboards.

"We're here!"

Rose appeared first, launching herself at me with the full-body commitment of a six-year-old who hasn't yet learned to hold anything back. I caught her, scooped her up, pulled her against my chest and held on. She was solid and warm and real, and for a moment—just a moment—the tightness in my chest eased.

"Hey, my baby girl." I kissed her cheek, her hair, whatever part of her I could reach. "There you are."

She smelled like toast and sunshine and something else—Mum's laundry powder, that particular brand she'd been using for thirty years. My daughter, smelling like my mother's house. The thought snagged on something I couldn't identify.

Mack was in the hallway doorway, watching. Not running to me, not smiling, just standing there with that look on his face—the one that made him seem older, the one that reminded me too much of Paul.

"Come here, darling." I held out my arm, the one that wasn't wrapped around Rose. "Come on."

He moved toward me slowly, reluctantly, and let me ruffle his hair. But he didn't lean in, didn't return the embrace, just stood there like a soldier enduring inspection. When had he become so stiff with me? When had my son started treating my affection like something to be tolerated rather than welcomed?

"You're both okay?" I looked between them, searching their faces for something—damage, neglect, signs that they'd missed me as much as I'd missed them. "Everything's okay?"

"Yeah," Rose said, beaming up at me. "We made a spaceship and I found moon money and Grandpa watched us and Grandma made toast—"

The words tumbled out of her in a rush, and I laughed. The sound felt strange in my throat, unfamiliar, like I'd forgotten how.

"Of course she did."

Movement in the kitchen doorway. I looked up and there was Mum, tea towel in hand, blocking the light. Her face was doing that thing it always did when I arrived unannounced—the careful arrangement of features that was supposed to look welcoming but never quite managed it.

"Claire."

"Mum."

I set Rose down but kept my hand on her shoulder. Anchor. Proof that I was here for a reason, that I had every right to walk into this house and see my own children.

The silence stretched between us, thick with everything we weren't saying.

"You didn't call," Mum said finally. Her voice had that tone—gentle on the surface, steel underneath. The tone she'd been using on me since I was fifteen and started refusing to do as I was told.

"Didn't realise I needed an appointment."

"I just meant—"

"I came to see my kids." I lifted my chin, met her eyes. "Is that alright with you?"

Something flickered across her face—hurt, maybe, or frustration, or that particular disappointment she'd perfected over the years of watching me fail to be the daughter she wanted.

"You know it is. You just caught us off guard, that's all."

Off guard. Like I was an intruder. Like my presence in my own parents' home was something that required preparation and warning.

The silence returned, heavier this time. I could feel Mack watching us, feel Rose pressed against my leg, feel the weight of all the words we weren't saying filling up the hallway like smoke.

"Why don't I put the kettle on?" Mum said eventually. The peace offering, the retreat into domesticity. Tea as treaty.

"No, thanks."

I didn't want her tea. Didn't want to sit in her kitchen and make small talk while she looked at me with those knowing eyes, cataloguing every sign of distress, every crack in the façade. I wanted to see my children, hold my children, and then leave before she could start asking questions I didn't want to answer.

We ended up in the kitchen anyway.

Rose had pulled me there, chattering about something—the spaceship game, the moon money, some elaborate fantasy she'd constructed with Mack—and I'd let myself be led because it was easier than standing in that hallway with Mum's silence pressing against me.

I sat at the table and pulled Rose onto my lap. Her weight was familiar, grounding, the shape of her fitting against me the way it always had. But something felt different—she seemed bigger somehow, longer in the limbs, less like a baby and more like the child she was becoming.

"You've grown," I said.

"I haven't."

"You look older."

She leaned back against me, her head tucking under my chin, and I wrapped my arms around her and tried to memorise the feeling. How long since I'd held her like this? How long since I'd had a moment that wasn't rushed, wasn't interrupted, wasn't squeezed between the studio and dinner and bedtime and all the other demands that fragmented my days into smaller and smaller pieces?

Mack sat at the other end of the table, watching. Always watching, that boy. He saw too much, understood too much, and lately he'd started asking questions that made me uncomfortable—questions about me and Paul, about the arguments he pretended not to hear, about the silences that stretched longer and longer between us.

"What's going on?" he asked now, his voice flat. "Why are you back?"

Back. As if I'd left. As if visiting my children at my parents' house was some kind of unexpected return rather than a perfectly normal thing for a mother to do.

"I missed you." I smiled at him, tried to make it warm, tried to make it reach my eyes. "Just wanted to check in."

His expression didn't change. "Where's Dad?"

The question hit like a small blow, precise and targeted. I felt my hand tighten on Rose's arm before I could stop it.

"He's busy."

"With what?"

"He's visiting your other grandparents in Adelaide."

The lie came easily—too easily, maybe, sliding out before I'd fully decided to tell it. But what was I supposed to say? Your father climbed out a window and drove away and I don't know where he is? Your father hasn't answered his phone in almost twenty-four hours and I'm starting to think he's never coming back?

No. The children didn't need to know that. The children needed stability, certainty, parents who had their lives under control. I could give them that, at least. I could give them the story instead of the truth.

Mack's eyes narrowed. "But yesterday you said he was in Mildura for that mining job."

The words landed like an accusation. He was tracking the lies, I realised. Keeping count of the inconsistencies, filing them away for later examination. When had my boy become a detective?

"Well, now he's in Adelaide." I kept my voice steady, reasonable. "He decided to visit his parents after the job finished."

"Why didn't we get to go with him?" Rose twisted to look up at me, her face open and trusting. "I wanted to see Nanna and Granddad. And he always takes us to that ice cream place with the sprinkles shaped like animals."

"And how come he didn't even visit us before he left?" Mack pressed. "Or call us? He always calls us before bedtime when he's away."

The questions kept coming, relentless, each one another small cut. I could feel my control fraying, the careful calm I'd constructed starting to crack at the edges.

"I don't owe you an itinerary." The words came out sharper than I'd intended, sharper than they should have been. "Your father does what he wants these days, whether it makes sense or not."

Silence.

Rose had gone still in my arms. Mack was staring at me with an expression I couldn't read—shock, maybe, or recognition, or something else entirely. The kitchen clock ticked in the quiet, counting out the seconds of my failure.

"Sorry, darling." I made myself soften, made myself breathe. "Mummy's just tired."

"It's okay," Rose whispered, but her voice was small, uncertain.

I kissed the top of her head, smoothed her hair, tried to repair whatever I'd just broken.

"Listen." I kept my voice gentle now, the voice I used for the younger students at the studio, the ones who needed coaxing and reassurance. "I've got to sort a few things out. But I'll be back soon. We're going to go away for a little while. Just us."

Mack's head came up. "Where?"

"Queensland."

"For what?"

The suspicion in his voice was exhausting. When had he stopped trusting me? When had every conversation become an interrogation?

"To visit your cousins. You like your cousins, don't you?"

He didn't answer. Just sat there, his fingers tracing invisible patterns on the tabletop, his face closed off and unreadable.

"You'll love it," I said, turning my attention to Rose. "We'll go swimming. We'll eat ice creams. Daddy will meet us there."

Rose twisted to look at me again, and this time her face was bright with hope. "He will?"

"Of course."

The lie was easier this time. Or maybe it wasn't a lie—maybe Paul would come, maybe he'd realise what he'd done and want to make things right, maybe everything would work out the way it was supposed to. We'd go to Queensland, we'd see Amelia and the kids, and Paul would join us there and we'd be a family again, a proper family, the kind that went on holidays together and laughed at dinner and didn't fall apart over arguments that shouldn't have mattered.

Rose settled back against me, satisfied. But Mack was still watching, still waiting, and I could see in his eyes that he didn't believe me. That he'd stopped believing me somewhere along the way, and I hadn't even noticed when it happened.

The conversation with Mum happened in the hallway, away from the children. I'd excused myself, said I needed the bathroom, but really I'd needed to get away from Mack's eyes and Rose's questions and the particular claustrophobia of that kitchen where I'd eaten a thousand meals and never felt full.

Mum followed me. Of course she did.

"I came because I had to." I kept my voice low, aware of small ears that might be listening. "Not because I needed a lecture."

"I'm not lecturing." Her voice was calm, measured, infuriatingly reasonable. "But Claire—"

"No. Don't." I held up my hand, warding her off. "Don't do that voice."

"You're not well."

The words hit like a slap. I felt my face flush, felt the anger rising up from somewhere deep and primal.

"You don't get to say that!"

"I'm saying it because I love you."

"Then keep your opinions to yourself."

We stood there in the dim hallway, facing each other like combatants. The faded wallpaper watched us, the same wallpaper that had witnessed a thousand other arguments over a thousand other years. Nothing ever changed in this house. The same patterns, the same expectations, the same disappointment when I failed to live up to whatever standard Mum had set in her head.

"They need more than love, Claire." Her voice was softer now, but the words were hard. "They need stability."

"I am their mother."

"I know that."

"Then stop acting like I don't know what I'm doing!"

The words echoed in the hallway, louder than I'd intended. I saw Mum flinch slightly, saw something move behind her eyes—hurt, or fear, or resignation—and I didn't care. I was so tired of being judged, so tired of being found wanting, so tired of everyone acting like they knew better than me how to live my life.

"I'll call tomorrow," I said, and pushed past her toward the door.

Dad was asleep in his chair when I passed through the lounge room.

I hadn't seen him since I'd arrived—he must have been there the whole time, slumped in that green armchair, oblivious to the conversations unfolding around him. His breathing was shallow, wheezy, and his face looked wrong somehow. Too pale. Too still. Like wax, or clay, or something that used to be alive and wasn't anymore.

I stopped.

For a moment I just stood there, looking at him. My father. The man who'd taught me to ride a bike, who'd driven me to dance competitions in cities five hours away, who'd sat in the audience at every recital and clapped until his palms were red. He looked smaller than I remembered. Fragile in a way that didn't fit with the person he'd been, the person I still expected him to be.

Something moved in my chest—a feeling I couldn't name, too complicated to examine, too painful to hold. I looked away, found my keys, gripped them until the metal bit into my palm.

The door was right there. The car was right there. All I had to do was walk through and drive away and not think about any of this until I was ready to think about it.

I walked through.

The car started on the first try. I reversed down the driveway too fast, heard the gravel spray against the wheel wells, and didn't slow down. The rear-view mirror showed the house receding behind me—the front porch, the window, a small figure that might have been Rose standing at the screen door.

I didn't look back.

The road stretched ahead, empty and familiar, leading back to the house where Paul wasn't waiting, where Charlie was probably still in the backyard, where all the evidence of my falling-apart life sat patiently, expecting my return.

Queensland. We'd go to Queensland. Amelia would know what to do—Amelia always knew what to do, had always been the sensible one, the stable one, the sister who'd figured out how to be a person in a way I never quite managed. We'd stay with her for a while, just until things settled down, just until Paul came to his senses and realised what he'd thrown away.

The speedometer crept higher. The town blurred past my windows—houses, shops, the landmarks of a lifetime compressed into a few minutes of driving.

I'd call the children tomorrow. I'd sort everything out. I'd make it right.

I had to make it right.