Chapter 1: Pebblestone

INTERLUDE: THE PLACE I COULDN’T LEAVE

Until Pebblestone, I could always run.

If something became unbearable, I escaped.

My father’s property.

My marriage.

The caravan.

Sydney.

The entire east coast of Australia.

There was always somewhere else to go.

Some version of reinvention waiting on the other side of endurance.

Leaving was how I survived.

But Pebblestone was different.

By the time I arrived there, escape was no longer an option. I had two children, a mortgage, and a body that had already learned what it meant to hold danger inside without collapsing. There was nowhere else to land that wouldn’t cost my children their sense of safety, or me my sanity.

For the first time in my life, I couldn’t out-run the problem.

I had to hold the line.

Pebblestone wasn’t just a house.

It was the end of escape as a strategy.

And the beginning of something harder, quieter, and far more difficult:

Staying.

CHAPTER 1: PEBBLESTONE

The night I realised I couldn’t leave, the house was quiet in the way that makes your skin prickle.

Not peaceful.

Alert.

I stood in the hallway barefoot, holding a baby against my chest, listening to the sound of nothing. The locks were done. I’d checked them twice. Still, my body hadn’t received the memo.

Pebblestone was not my dream house.

It was the house I had left.

Or at least, the house I would have left, if leaving had been an option.

It wasn’t Pinterest-worthy or magazine-ready. It was old and unfinished, held together by hope, Bunnings receipts, and whatever strength I hadn’t already spent keeping two small boys alive. The bathroom leaked. The kitchen looked like a tradie had gone to smoko and never come back. Half the yard was a jungle, the rest was pea gravel and sand.

It was too expensive.

Too broken.

Too much.

And still, I stayed.

Because standing there in the dark, with one child breathing softly against me and the other asleep down the hall, something cold and immovable settled in my chest.

I couldn’t leave.

Not because I didn’t want to.

Because I couldn’t afford to fail.

Because if this house slipped through my fingers, too much else already had.

Pebblestone carried the residue of someone dangerous having lived there. Broken doorframes. Cracked plaster. Dents in walls that didn’t come from furniture. The kind of damage you stop noticing until you’re alone and your body remembers before your brain does.

So every day, I worked to erase him.

Lavender oil. Nag champa incense. Gentle music. Spackle and paint.

And the industrial-strength determination of a woman who has decided her children will never be afraid in their own home again.

Westley — opinionated, creative, always plotting his way around rules.

Nathaniel — big-hearted, watchful, already far too wise for his years.

And a Rottweiler who appointed himself Head of Security and Steak Disposal Specialist.

Pebblestone became a fortress.

My burden.

Our castle.

Mornings were loud and chaotic and somehow joyful. Nathaniel climbing into my bed before dawn. Westley charging into the kitchen like a pirate in a nappy. Me gripping a coffee like it was life support.

The house wasn’t tidy.

It was alive.

Crumbs under the table. Fingerprints on the bench. Bikes and toys in every walkway. My sketchbook permanently open, because drawing was the only way to bleed pressure out of my head without falling apart.

Pebblestone had ghosts. Not the dramatic kind, the quieter ones that live in muscle memory. Sometimes the walls felt too heavy, too full of history. But then a child would laugh, or the dog would steal a pancake off the bench, and life would jolt its way back in.

People romanticise “starting from scratch.”

They don’t tell you that scratch is sharp.

Scratch cuts.

Pebblestone was scratch. And I kept it anyway.

Because it wasn’t just a house, it was a promise.

A promise whispered to two babies who didn’t know how close the ground had been:

You’re safe, I’ve got you.

A promise repeated while checking locks.

While rocking one child and holding the other.

While standing alone in the kitchen whispering, We’re okay. I’ve got this.

Pebblestone wasn’t the dream.

It was the line I was determined to hold.

The battlefield.

The sanctuary.

The place that hardened some parts of me and softened others without asking permission.

Before fire.

Before water.

There was this house.

And me.

And two boys.

A life held together with all my strength, faith, and a will that had shown it would not break.