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Love Rhyleigh xoxox
An unthinkable amount of tennis balls had gone over the Rafter fence.
Tennis balls.
Soccer balls.
A netball.
And the frisbee Ben had received from his grandfather at nine years of age.
They were too scared to make the daunting walk over to their neighbour's house, they were too scared to knock on the door and ask for them back. Mrs Luscombe, their elderly, crabby next door neighbour, scared them witless.
They never paused their play to think that there might be a reason behind it.
She was married at a young age, and had twins. A beautiful baby boy and girl. Unfortunately, neither survived past six months. They weren't sure why, but she had been devastated. After having miscarried two more babies, her marriage fell apart, and she was left their big, empty house.
Having the Rafter family next door provided some sort of comfort- she watched the kids grow up from the safety of her window. And whenever their play equipment found its way over to her side of the fence- marked clearly with Rachel, Ben or Nathan Rafter, in permanent texta- she would bring it inside, in the hope of the young children coming to retrieve it.
But they never did.
She watched the three Rafter children grow up and move onto lives of their own- she heard the kerfuffle with Rachel moving out to go to university, she knew that Nathan was married, and she knew that Ben, the ever cheeky joker, had moved just next door. She knew that Louise Taylor had passed away, and she knew that Ben had married his female housemate, in a simple ceremony in the park.
She knew all this, and yet she couldn't bring herself to speak to the Rafter family. A nod would do, she had decided, when the kids' cowered behind their parents' cars, as she made her way past.
There was a box, in the corner of her kitchen, labelled 'Rafters'. A plain cardboard box, filled to the brim with childhood play equipment, equipment that had made its way over the fence by accident.
And she had hoped, for twenty years, that one day the kids could work up the courage to come around and ask for it back.
