I don’t trust the title of this book anymore. For a long time, The Fire and The Water felt right. It gave shape to things that were overwhelming. It made intensity feel meaningful. Now I’m not so sure. I’m starting to wonder if fire and water were never the problem. If naming them that way was just a way to avoid looking at something deeper and harder to admit. I wasn’t drowned. I wasn’t forged. I wasn’t even changed in the dramatic way I once believed. I was hiding. Not all

Most love stories start with a man. Mine starts with a house called Pebblestone, a Rottweiler with boundary issues, and two small boys who think I’m indestructible. It starts with me. A woman who has weathered enough storms to know better than to romanticise them, standing in the wreckage of a life that didn’t go to plan. It starts with me deciding, quietly, not to lie down in it. There are no fairytales here. Only saltwater and petrol fumes. A kitchen bench stacked with panc