The Great Between

Happy Birthday, Welcome Home

Max's pancakes are a minor disaster. She puts sprinkles in the batter and the colours bleed so they look mouldy. Then she manages to burn them and once she's finished they look like discs of blackened mess. Moral of the story, don't let Max cook, even if she's trying to do something nice for your birthday.

The doorbell rings as she's scraping burnt pancake from a frying pan and Max nearly drops the pan. She looks up with big excited eyes.

'That's for you,' she says, hurrying to dry her hands and push me down the hallway.

There is a boxy parcel on the front step, messily wrapped in Christmas paper and secured with too much sticky tape. There is a card resting on top.

Max points down the driveway and I look up just in time to see Leo wave before his car pulls out onto the street, disappearing behind our vine-tangled fence.

I reach down to take the card and open it slowly, moving so my back is to Max and she can't read over my shoulder.

All it says is Happy birthday, Stella.

My heart sinks. So much for cards that actually say something.

Max stands on tip-toes to rest her chin on my shoulder, reaching around to snatch at the card. I let her take it.

'That's bullshit,' she yells, right in my ear.

'It's fine,' I lie.

We go into the lounge room and I sit with the present on my lap.

'It's from both of us,' Max says, watching as I tear away the Christmas paper.

Ribbons of snowflake-patterned paper fall to the carpet to reveal a shoebox with two little pins inside, resting on the fancy hardcover edition of Hitchhiker's from Pen's shop. One pin has a Frida Kahlo quote written on it in swirling cursive that reads: At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can. Max grins at me as I pin it to the pocket of my jacket.

The other badge is a whale falling through the sky like in Hitchhiker's. I feel my grin spark when I see it and a warmth open up in my chest. Part of me hopes the pin is one in a pair.

'Happy birthday, you dork,' Max says, giving me a squeezy hug.

'Thank you,' I say, my voice wobbling.

'Oh don't cry,' she whines, patting my head awkwardly. 'You know I can't deal with crying.'

I sniffle and promise I'll stop.

'How does it feel to be an adult?' she whispers.

'Very strange.'

'Are you sure it's not just that everything feels strange right now?'

'It could be.'

Max holds my shoulders and gives me a serious look. 'You know what we should do?'

'If you say get drunk and video call Charlie, I'm going to have to decline.'

She pouts at me. 'You're no fun.'

I give Max another hug and thank her over and over for the book. She pins the whale badge to my jacket and smiles like she knows something I don't.

'What?'

'You'll see,' she says as my phone beeps. Her grin widens. 'Right on cue.'

The screen lights up with a message from Leo. It's a photo of another badge, a bowl of petunias tumbling through the air. Now we match, he's written. I think I might just implode.