My mother puts her foot sideways on the front step, holds onto my arm and waits. We are going out for the morning. Down goes her right foot then her left. She's slightly unbalanced then steadies and off we go across the verandah to the wooden landing. My sister appears and takes her other arm and like a baby who's taking her first steps, we steer her along, ready in case she stumbles. My mother is all concentration and daring too on her way to the car. She straightens up while I hold the passenger door open then shifts her hips and turns herself around so she can slowly, carefully lower her body into the car. I've put a pillow in to prop her up in the seat Now it's her ankles and feet dangling underneath the door and I lift them one by one and feel no resistance as I settle them on the floor.
She slides her hand along the seat-belt sash to the buckle and feels for the clasp. By the time I've closed her door and gone around to my side she's pushed it in and felt the click.
I drive out along the gravel track towards the main road. The water, the water's beside us. The big old bay like a grey bowl filling and spilling. The rain's easing to a drizzle. She's interested in everything sliding by her window. A row of old cypress pines, the view they'd get from houses lining my side of the road, the return of a bit of sunshine. I lean my head towards her and try to pick up what she's saying but it's hard. Her voice so soft, the talk of the girls in the back seat running over her words.
We pass through St Leonards and head towards Ocean Grove. I look across at her sitting beside me. Remember this trip. Remember how mum took the morning in. Took it in with the sun and the light talk of her grand-daughters running through the car and paddocks and trees going by so fast on the open stretch between the roundabout and the straight road to the coast. Going so fast and going so slow..
