Not Home Yet

by Dorit d'Scarlett

At the edge of a too-wide sea, salt tang bites my face. Ocean boils against rocks and sand, rumbling like a Russian Tu-95 ‘Bear’ bomber.

Fingers trembling.

I dig my nails into my palms until they sting.

Papa’s broad shape is square as he bends, poking at the sand to unearth pipis for dinner. Larysa’s neon pink jacket glares against the muted tones of sand and seaweed.

Out of place. Like us.

Tasmania. It sounds soft, like it should belong to a lullaby, but there’s nothing soft about it. The air here is sharp-edged, clean in a way that cuts. Even now, the wind digs into my ribs as if trying to carve me out, hollow me into something lighter, unburdened by memories. Of Mama. Something that might belong here.

A group of Australians walk along the beach, barefoot despite the freezing sand. Their voices carry, loud and loose, stretched like rubber bands that never snap. A boy runs ahead, laughing loud enough to echo off the cliffs. He doesn’t care that the world is vast and wild and could swallow him whole.

I pull my coat tighter, the fabric rough against my fingers. A charity shop find, it still smells faintly of someone else’s ham sandwich life. Larysa called it ugly. I don’t care. No one sees me anyway.

The wind shifts, carrying salt, seaweed, and the faint metallic tang of something rotting in the rocks. It reminds me of Odessa, where the air was thick with brine and fish markets. My mouth twists. I miss it, even the parts I hated.

‘Kateryna!’ Papa’s voice rises faintly over the wind, waving. Larysa points at something in the sand. I want to stay here, pretend I don’t hear them. But Papa will think something is wrong with me, and he has enough burdens.

The sand shifts underfoot as I reach them. Papa smiles, his face creased, tired. He points at a cluster of shells, perfectly formed and white as bone.

‘Look, Kateryna. Beautiful, isn’t it?’

I nod, though they seem ordinary, scattered like forgotten fragments.

The Australians move further down the beach, their careless joy echoing on the wind, colourful beach towels flung down with eskys. It’s like looking through a window into a world I can’t touch.Papa crouches beside Larysa, picking through shells. His thick, calloused fingers sort through them with a patience I’ve never understood. In Odessa, he’d lecture in university halls. Here, he grinds machine parts for wages. The sourness of it coats my tongue.

A bird cries. A currawong perches on a low branch on the cliff, its feathers shifting between green and blue in the light. It hops higher, calling again. I climb after it, boots crunching over dry leaves and twigs.

The saltiness of the ocean fades, replaced by the earthy smell of eucalyptus. Shadows stretch long and cool under towering gums. The bush moves in whispers—rustles in the undergrowth, the high-pitched buzz of insects, the distant chatter of birds.

The currawong flits ahead, pausing now and then to look back, as if checking I’m still there. The path twists, narrows. My legs ache, but I keep moving, the canopy closing around me. When the bird vanishes, I stop.

Stillness against me. Undergrowth thick. Light thin. I turn slowly. My mouth is dry because I don’t know which way is back.

Lost.

The word lodges inside me like a splinter.

I move forward, the shadows darker, the air a dense accusation. My throat tightens. I’ve heard stories about the island’s people—whole clans wiped out, their voices silenced.

Genocide. The word tastes bitter.

Is that what will happen to us? Not with guns, but something quieter. A slow erasure. The parts of us that don’t fit here—Papa’s language, Larysa’s songs, making pysanky at easter—will they disappear so we can belong? Would that make me Australian? Or would I always be a shadow on the edge of their world, close enough to touch but never really part of it?

My pulse wump-wump-wumps against my temples. I imagine myself years from now, speaking perfect English, liking Vegemite on toast, forgetting the smell of borscht on a winter’s evening. Would that make me Australian? Or just a shadow on the edge of their world?

A twig snaps. I whirl around, breath catching. Movement.

A kangaroo.

Its ears twitch as it watches me, its coat blending into the grey-green bush. It stands still, neither hiding nor running, as if it’s always been here.

Something shifts inside me. The bush isn’t accusing me. It isn’t angry. It’s just there, vast and indifferent. I’m the one trying to shape it into a story I can understand.

Maybe that’s what it means to belong – not to erase the differences, but to stop fighting them. To let them exist alongside everything else, like the kangaroo standing in the shadows, neither hiding nor running.

Deep breath, air cool. Heaviness inside me lifting, replaced by something… lighter, fragile, new.When the kangaroo bounds away, I don’t follow. Instead, I let instinct guide me, letting the bush unfold around me, accepting that I am part of it now – not separate, not the same, but here.