58. Norah

A YEAR LATER…

Norah walked into the pub. It smelled warm and yeasty and the air felt shot through with deep-fryer oil. Larry sat at the bar, nursing half a pint. Behind the bar stood Ishir. Apart from the two of them, the place was empty.

"I'm back!" Norah announced.

Larry looked over briefly, then immediately went back to his beer. But Ishir beamed. His mustache rose up at each corner, making him look like a circus ringmaster. Norah had grown to adore the delighted way he greeted her arrival.

"Where are the dogs?"

"Already out back," she said. "They couldn't wait to see Banjo."

"He missed them," Ishir said. "It would really be much better if they—and you—were here all the time."

As he'd warned her, Ishir was terrible at playing it cool. As Larry still hadn't offered to buy the pub, he'd been stuck in Port Agatha, and he'd been begging her to move there too. Norah was considering it. With her job she could work from anywhere, and the dogs adored it here. She'd also found a kickboxing class in the area that she loved, which really helped channel her difficult emotions. There were a lot of reasons in favor of moving—not the least of which was Ishir.

In the past, she wouldn't have considered living so far away from Alicia and Jessica, but since her stint in jail she'd realized that it wasn't impossible. She'd spent eleven days in prison as a result of her assault on Kevin. It could have been a lot longer had Anna not represented her and had the women's prison not been over capacity. It wasn't so bad, on the whole. Not dissimilar to Wild Meadows, really, except she hadn't been locked under the stairs and didn't have to worry about something happening to her sisters. Jessica would have loved the schedule. Prescribed times for personal hygiene, phone calls, and "leisure." The food wasn't great, but it was only eleven days. Norah had emerged with a clean slate. Four months after leaving prison, it was still clean. And the best part of the whole experience? Thanks to Anna and a female judge, Kevin got four months for extortion, and would never work around children again.

After that, leaving Melbourne didn't seem so unthinkable. It was only a couple of hours' drive. And, despite everything that had happened in Port Agatha, she had to admit that there was something about the town that felt like… home.

But she hadn't made any decisions yet.

Ishir poured Larry a fresh pint and placed it on the bar in front of him. Then he lifted the hinge on the counter and came around the bar to kiss Norah. She loved the way his mustache tickled her top lip.

"Is that your phone," he said against her lips, "or are you just happy to see me?"

Norah fished her phone out of her pocket. It was Meera.

"I have news," she said. "We found Zara's parents. Her biological parents."

"No!" Norah cried.

"Here's what we know. They were newlyweds and had just emigrated from Russia to Australia when Zara's mother discovered she was pregnant. They were in their early twenties, and confessed they didn't know much about caring for a baby. Zara was taken into care after a neighbor heard her crying. Apparently they'd left her home alone while they took a night class, learning English. They were told if they took a parenting course she would be returned to them, but they never saw her again."

"Wow."

"They returned to Russia a decade or so later. They're having a FaceTime with Zara later today."

"I hope Scott gets extradited to Russia to face them," Norah said. "I bet they'd love a few minutes in a cell with him."

Meera laughed. "I'll see what I can do."

They ended the call, and Norah walked back to the bar to see Ishir had pulled them a couple of beers.

"Larry, can you hold the fort for a few minutes?" he asked.

Larry continued staring at the television, as if he hadn't spoken.

"Awesome, thanks," Ishir said. Then he turned to Norah. "Come on. Let's go play with the dogs."

And so they did.

This, Norah realized, was home.