Our Kind of Love by Victoria Purman Page A

she wasn’t sure she had. And she needed to make sure her reserves were topped up because when she returned home that evening, with everything of Alex’s gone, it would really be the first day of the rest of her life.
    ‘No one’s cracking the whip here, Anna. Don’t go racing home just yet. You’ve been through a whole lot of shit in the past few months. It’s time you kicked off those damn high heels and got your feet wet.’
    She symbolically toed them off and her red heels toppled to the floor. ‘Done,’ she announced.
    ‘See? How easy was that?’ Dan asked with a smile.
    ‘Shoes are the easy part. Now I need to find a new life for myself. And, to be honest, Danny, I don’t know where to start.’
    ‘You start down here, Anna. You start by taking one step, then another, down there on the beach. And then, one deep breath, and then another. When you want to escape, this is the place to escape to.’
    She nudged him. ‘Is that what you did?’
    ‘Yeah, I did. And I found that new life for myself. Right here.’
    Anna smiled, felt lighter just being able to talk about it with someone. ‘How about you show me this beach I’ve heard so much about?’
    It was the feel of warm sand between her toes that triggered the memory. When Anna was a child the Morelli family spent a lot of time at the beach. It was the only way to escape Adelaide’s relentless, scorching, suburban summer days. Her family would pack up their car – all three kids, an esky full of food and drink, fold-out chairs, tables, towels and beach shelters packed inside – and head to the coast for the day. Along the journey, they would stop and beep their horns outside other houses – her grandparents and other families – and convene a convoy. The whole extended clan would think nothing of blowing half a tank of petrol on the drive to Aldinga on the western side of the Fleurieu Peninsula, where the warm waters of the Gulf St Vincent washed on to the beach. It was the only place along Adelaide’s metropolitan coastline where people could drive from the road directly onto the sand and, despite her father’s niggling concerns about premature rust on his Holden, he would acquiesce and drive slowly along until they found the perfect spot to set up camp.
    In no time flat, the families would construct a mini-village; the cars would park in such a way as to create a central area that could be shaded with a tarpaulin strung up between slammed car doors. The kids would spend the whole day in the water. The men would argue and smoke and the women would prepare lunch and gossip.
    ‘Anna?’ Dan looked back for her. He was already on the sand.
    ‘Yeah, I’m coming.’ The view stirred so many vivid memories of her childhood. She’d always loved the road trip but never the beach. She remembered the peculiarly teenage pangs of self-consciousness about appearing in her bikini in front of the boys from the other families, who were all too rambunctious and teasing for her liking. She’d never been a great swimmer, either, and as soon as she’d seen them grab her younger brother Luca and dunk him under the water, she’d steered clear of them all. And the waves. Instead, she buried herself in books and lingered near the mothers and aunts and her Nonna, quietly listening with great intent to the conversations they thought she wouldn’t understand.
    That’s why now, twenty years later, she was more than surprised to find herself walking along the white warm sands of Middle Point in bare feet and kind of enjoying it. It all felt new to her, somehow. The way the sand abraded her toes as she walked, like a mini workout for the soles of her feet. And the splash of the water on her ankles cooled her off from the legs up and was quite refreshing.
    With one hand she shielded her eyes from the hot midday sun. Despite wearing a pair of Audrey Hepburn-style sunglasses, she still had to squint it was so bright, the light bouncing off the white sand and the shallows