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Margot sighed dramatically. “Oh, I can just picture it. Him building a shack and waiting, oh so patiently, for you to become old enough to be his.”
“Jesus Christ,” Dylan muttered under his breath. “You really should have been a novelist instead of a journalist with that sort of carry on.”
Margot laughed and poked Dylan in his ribs with her pen. “You’re into this. I see you scribbling. I see you annoyed at me for interrupting.”
“If I’m going to partake in recording Nerida Avci’s autobiography, then I want to have every fact perfect.”
“Liar.” Margot giggled under her breath. “You’re a romantic.”
Dylan scowled and focused on me. “So what happened? Did he stay in the end?”
“He stayed but not without a lot of discussions. Aslan was every bad word you can think of: illegal immigrant. Overstayer. Tax avoider. Visa dodger. Every day, his status overshadowed his safety within our lives, which made every day so precious because we never knew if he’d have another.
“We all felt it. And we all wondered how long we could keep him unseen, but thanks to my wonderful parents, they chose Aslan and all that came with it. We sat down at the dining room table and had one of the most influential conversations of my short life. My father laid it all out there. He said everything we were thinking and more: Aslan could never get complacent. He’d always have to look over his shoulder. He could never travel. Never work. Never rent or buy a home. Never marry.
“His only two options were...hand himself in and let the paperwork fall where it fell or...stay with us.”
Dylan cocked an eyebrow. “But why would your family take on that sort of risk? Surely, there are consequences for people who harbour asylum seekers?”
“You have to understand that for all the work my parents did, it was still very much reliant on grants and donations. They had a fabulous reputation and were able to afford their own craft and crew—even if it was just them. They were always very proactive about sourcing research firms who needed trustworthy scientists in Australia, but...they couldn’t afford to hire another biologist. They couldn’t even afford to hire a skipper.”
“So they hired Aslan under the table?” Dylan wrinkled his nose. “Isn’t that taking advantage of a minor and an unpapered one at that?”
“Definitely.” I laughed. “My father and mother hired an illegal immigrant and paid him under the table.”
“And that sat okay with you?” Margot asked quietly.
“Of course. He wasn’t some nameless statistic on TV or some random refugee. He lived with us. He hid the depth of his pain and gave the best of himself to us, all while trying to repay us for the life he still wasn’t sure he wanted. He was just a boy. A boy who would be affected by our decision and entirely reliant on our willingness to step outside the black and white lines of the law. My parents needed help they couldn’t afford. And Aslan needed a chance at a new existence. The agreement benefited both parties.”
“So that was it? You plucked a total stranger from the sea, and he became family?” Dylan asked with an edge.
I didn’t like that edge, but I kept a smile on my face. “Not quite. We all agreed on six months. Six months to see if it would work and give Aslan time to figure out what to do next. The very next day, my father announced Aslan couldn’t stay in the guest room for that amount of time, and we all travelled to the local Bunnings where we filled up a trailer full of building supplies.”
I stopped speaking, reliving that chaotic day of taking Aslan into town for the first time. He’d been so nervous walking beside us. So twitchy whenever a sales assistant came too close. And downright terrified when we got stopped on the way out of the wood yard to show our receipt for the timber strapped inside the borrowed trailer.
My mother hadn’t thought it wise to parade our recently acquired illegal overstayer in public, but Dad argued that if he was staying, he had to be seen with us now, not later. He had to spread the narrative before someone else could spread a damaging one. From that day on, Aslan was a distant friend of a cousin, and he’d come to learn the trade.
Remembering to talk and not just silently travel down memory lane, I said, “When we got home with all the building supplies, my father commanded us to carry everything to the sala overlooking the pool. The sala that he’d built for my mother but had seen better days after a few tropical storms.
“I remember watching Aslan’s reaction to being demoted to living in the garden as my father got building, blocking in the walls to make the sala weather tight, and placing shingles on the roof to make it rain proof. I expected to see shock, annoyance, trepidation even. But you know what I saw? From the homeless, sea-orphan boy?”
