Swallow the Air: 20. Home Summary & Analysis

When May arrives at her neighborhood the tide is coming in. She walks to the water and when she feels the salt on her shins, she knows she’s truly home, feeling and smelling the air that she has always loved. She can tell that a storm is coming in and pulls her hood over her face. The ocean is “gray and sad,” except for the beautiful waves breaking quietly against the shore. The familiar escarpment lies behind her.

May walks back up the beach towards the road, feeling that she understands the meaning of the word “home” for the first time. She feels that somehow Mum is conscious that she’s made it here. Moreover, she knows that she’ll always be at home wherever there’s water—after all, she, Aunty, Mum, and Billy are all of the Wiradjuri, or “hard water” people. Even though this beach isn’t her tribe’s native land, she feels that she and all her family are intimately connected to its water.

May knows she could run away again and try to escape her family and its painful past. However, she knows that no matter how far she goes or how much she drinks or what drugs she uses, she’ll never be able to leave her family behind. It occurs to May that when Mum died, she and Billy both became lost. It was as if they were in the ocean and “forgot to come up for mouthfuls of air,” losing trust in the thing that had always supported them.

When May reaches her neighborhood, Paradise Parade is “warring”—many of the houses are in the process of being demolished, and construction machines sit in the street, paused during the rainstorm.

In high spirits, May walks through the broken fence and shouts that Aunty should get it fixed. She runs into the house to find Aunty drinking a beer in the kitchen; when her aunt sees her, she starts crying. Billy comes in from the living room and supports Aunty, as she sobs to May that she’s being evicted from the house. Although May is worried about Aunty’s tears, she’s relieved to see that Billy’s face is clear and he obviously hasn’t been using. Even though the house is crumbling, it still feels like home, and she’s happy to be here for the first time in years.

May sits down at the table and flips through the dozen tablecloths that are layered over each other on the kitchen table, all different colors and materials. She remembers visiting the house with Mum every time Aunty bought a new tablecloth. As a young girl, she was always excited to see the new purchase emerge clean and new from its shopping bag. Inspired by this memory, May suggests that they all go out and buy a new tablecloth—an orange one, she specifies. Billy looks up from the table and Aunty smiles. Suddenly, she cheers up and slaps the floor in delight, saying that they can’t kick her out when she has “a new tablecloth to wear in.”

May looks outside at the gulls that are whirling over the water. The wind has changed and for a moment the ocean appears clear. May can see surfers paddling for the next wave, and she hears an excavator starting up in the street. Its noise rises “over the sun” and “over the blue” of the sky. May asks herself what will happen if they stay in the neighborhood, if the excavators stop “digging up Aunty’s backyard” and “digging up our people.” If that happens, she thinks, maybe “we’ll all stop crying.”