„Are we there yet?" a whiny little girl's voice asked from the back seat. It seemed to be the key sentence of the day, reflecting the impatience of the three people crammed inside the car with their entire luggage.

"Not yet, sweetheart." Tess sighed. "You asked that question about five times in the past ten minutes." But who could really blame Emily? The long flight had made Tess tired herself. If she could hardly stand this long car ride, how could she expect a child to bear it quietly? Her back, her whole body ached; she felt sticky and was pretty sure she smelled like it, too. The thought of meeting Peter Johnson in her sweaty clothes with greasy hair wasn't exactly appealing, but she had promised to visit Charlotte as soon as they reached the city, before looking for an affordable hotel room. All that she really wanted to do was to take a shower and fall into her bed. Her bed, her bed at Drover's. The thought of it made her smile. Just one more night, and she would be back on the farm.

"We'll be there soon, Emmy. Try to sleep a little." Nick said soothingly. How could he always be so calm?

"But my butt hurts…"

"I know, it's the same for all of us. But if you close your eyes now, we may be there when you wake u- hey!" He honked as the van driving next to them swerved to the left, pressing him closer to the rout. "Idiot…" Or maybe not quite as calm…

"Want me to drive?"

"No, that's okay. Thanks, though."

"But you've been behind the wheel for such a long time, we're all tired, are you sure you don't want me to take over?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"But wouldn't it be safer-"

"Tess, I can do this, alright?" he answered sharply without raising his voice.

"If you say so." Sometimes, Tess doubted if she would ever understand this whole ego-thing. She knew why it was so important to him to prove himself, with regard to his injured leg, but why did he still think he had to prove anything to her? What was it with men and their sense of masculinity?

"Look, mummy, ovejas!" Emily exclaimed with excitement, pointing at a herd.

"Yeah, sheep!"

For a while, they kept heading down the road, each of them quietly lost in thought. They drove for ten, fifteen, twenty miles, but the deserted area still looked the same: ochre hills and plains of dry earth with stubbles of grass. The air was filled with a sandy dust, there had to have been a long period without rain. All of this land would be green in winter.

Nick shot a glance in the mirror and grinned. "Hey, looks like she's fallen asleep at last."

Tess turned around. "I thought it was getting awfully quiet back there." The picture of her daughter's head resting against the window, the blond hair covering half of her face made her heart cringe. She looked so much like a younger Charlotte. It seemed like yesterday when another little girl had been sitting in the back seat-but it wasn't. Her BOM wasn't all that little anymore, and Tess hadn't been there for her.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"Oh, I was just thinking…about Charlotte, you know, about everything…"

"It's gonna be great to see her again."

"Yes. Yes, it will be." she reiterated as if to convince herself of it. "But Nick, it's been such a long time, what if she doesn't feel comfortable around us anymore? Our visits were so short and this is her first stay on Drover's…I mean she barely knows us."

"You wrote to her as often as possible-"

"Letters, pictures, a few phone calls, it's just not the same. I should have been there for her, like I promised. I promised to take care of her, Nick!" She took a deep breath, pushing back a loose strand of hair.

A moment of silence passed between them. When Nick spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper. "And I thought it had been your choice, too."

Tess looked over at him and saw the pain in his eyes, which caused her to feel sorry for her words. "It was, really. I told you to take that job you wanted so much, and I knew BOM would be fine with Peter and Julia. It's just that sometimes…I feel guilty about it."

"Do you regret it?"

"No, I wouldn't want to miss the past four years, but I regret…not watching Charlotte grow up. And I often wonder what Claire would have said if she had known I'd leave her daughter with Peter."

"You can't know if Claire would have been against it, after all, she wanted him to sign the birth certificate…and it was you who wanted Charlotte to grow up in a 'normal' family with her sisters."

"I know that, Nick, I know." She sighed, he wouldn't understand. "I suppose I'm a bit nervous about moving back here, about how everything will develop."

"So am I." He gave her a quick look, smiling. "I'm sure it's gonna be fine."

They had driven into the city, ochre plains were replaced by grey, high houses and streets with more traffic. Everything seemed more hustled here, as if everyone were running out of time. Although Tess liked the summer in the country, when it wasn't too hot at least, she couldn't stand it in the city. The air would be "standing" there, without the least bit of circulation, and all too often it was filled with emissions and dust from the asphalt. Fortunately, what they called a "city" wasn't really a big one. Compared to Adelaide or Melbourne, Fisher was a village. It was merely the afternoon traffic in the business area that made it appear so busy.

"Where do I turn left again?" Nick asked with a hint of nervousness.

"After the old office building, you know, the one with the bricks, there should be a marker with- ah, there it is, Acacia Drive! Turn right here!"

"Right!"

"Yeah, it's shorter, trust me." He steered very rapidly, but not even that was enough to wake up Emily, who was still sleeping tightly.

"I hope you know where we're going…"

"You've got to trust me, Nick."

He grinned. "Like I did on our trip to the Mercedario?"

"Hey, that was different! You don't follow a city girl out in the wilderness. Roads with asphalt and identifiable houses-that's my domain."

"Well, then tell me, city girl, do I turn left here?"

"Yeah, we should be at-ah, there we are." She beamed at him proudly. "Does that look familiar to you?" They had arrived in a nice neighbourhood with modest, attractive houses and-more or less-neat front gardens. It was a clean residential area, nothing pompous.

"I am speechless" Nick commented, parking the car in front of a garage, which belonged to the red, rather flat house they knew well. "impressed by your navigating skills."

She simply answered with a pseudo-insulted look, before turning around to their daughter. "Emily…wake up, honey. We're there."

The little girl stirred, rubbing her right cheek. "No…"

Nick chuckled. "Oh, so you don't wanna see Charlotte?"

Suddenly, Emily was wide awake. "What! We're there?"

Tess opened the door, ready to stretch her limbs a little, but her daughter had already wriggled out of the car, running towards the house. "Wait for us, Em!"

Her call fell on deaf ears, so Nick and Tess hurried to catch up with her. She was waiting for them at the front door. "Can you ring the bell now, mummy?"

"You can ring it, too." The little girl shook her head and stepped back a bit. "Emmy, that dog won't bite you. He just barks because he wants to defend his home against burglars."

Tess didn't have the nerve to really deal with her daughter's fear at that moment. As she rang the doorbell, her heart rate seemed to be racing more than ever. As always, they were greeted by high-pitched yapping, which made Emily move even closer to her parents' side. A girl in her early teens opened the door.

"Hi, Allana." Tess smiled at the eldest Johnson child, who had changed a lot in the past year. She was wearing make-up now, quite heavy make-up for her age and her red spaghetti strap top was very different from the baggy T-shirts she had worn before. "It's nice to see you again."

"Hi" she replied in a friendly, but confused tone. "We didn't expect you so early…mum's gone shopping, she should be back in an hour or so, though. Oh, sorry, come inside."

"Thanks."

"Shut up, Cooper!" Allana closed the door and lead them into the small hall. "Charlie! Dad! Charlie's aunt is here!" When she noticed how suspiciously Emily was eying her dog, she crouched down to pat his head. "You don't need to be afraid of that little bugger, he's just a poor old crossbreed who doesn't have many things to do besides barking."

A loud cry of joy could be heard from the stairs. "Auntie Tess!" Charlotte was downstairs in a matter of seconds, practically flying into her aunt's arms.

"Hey!" For a moment, she was unable to utter anything else, just embracing her niece tightly in a mixture of laughter and true emotion. She loved those moments.

"I missed you sooo much!"

"I missed…you too, Charlotte. More than you can imagine." She felt a lump in her throat that threatened to break the happy façade and tried to shrug it off with a big smile. "But hey, it's great to see you again!"

"Emily, this is your cousin Charlotte. We had a picnic with her by the lake last summer, do you remember?"

" 'Course!" She smiled hesitantly, both girls were a bit unsure of what to say.

Nick, who had been waiting in the background quietly, watching the reunion with a sense of contentment, was next to be greeted with a hug(albeit a slightly smaller one). The group hadn't even noticed Peter coming out of his office until he cleared his throat audibly. "Hello, Tess…Nick…Emily." The little girl was the only one he genuinely smiled at. In all of the years, they hadn't been able to eliminate the awkward stiffness entirely. Too many things had happened. "Did you have a good trip?"

"Oh yeah-long, but without complications."

He nodded. "Julia was going to have some tea and cake ready for you, but I'm afraid we didn't count on your early arrival. For now, I guess all you'll get is tea."

"Dad…" Both his daughters gave him a look that may have been supposed to express something like 'let's not waste our time with tea', or perhaps 'don't make a big deal of it'. It was hard to tell sometimes.

"You don't need to make tea just for us, Peter, thank you." Tess rejected the offer diplomatically. "It's a bit hot for it, anyway. Just a glass of water would be great."

"All right, then." They went into the living room, sitting down on the dark brown couch. Charlotte was obviously getting impatient, but didn't dare to say anything, just like Emily. The first few minutes were always strange. Deep down inside, Tess was hoping that this awkwardness would slowly disappear now that she could see her niece more often.

"I'm sorry we didn't tell you we'd be this early." Nick broke the silence. "It wasn't easy to rent a car that could be returned in Gungellan, and we didn't count on it going so fast."

"You don't need to apologize for that, I'm glad you made it here all right."

"Where's Natalie?"

"Shopping with Julia. They were gonna buy her some new clothes-not that she doesn't have enough. She should be back soon."

Peter handed each of them a glass of water. "Thanks."

Emily's face lit up. "Look, daddy, my cup has Shrek, el ogro, on it!"

"Yeah, we watched that movie the other day, didn't we?"

"Really? Natalie used to love that film." Peter explained. "She even collected Shrek stickers…you could ask her about them sometime, I'm sure she still has them somewhere. Charlotte and Allana are different, they never liked it."

Suddenly, the adults were involved in a conversation about their children, and the awkwardness subsided bit by bit. The gap between them wasn't as wide as it had seemed at first; raising kids was a similar experience in Argentina and Australia. BOM and Emily ran upstairs, since Charlotte wanted to show the latter her new room and Allana grabbed the phone and called a friend, bored with the conversation.

After about half an hour, Julia and Natalie joined them, and although Nick and Tess politely refused it, Julia insisted that they would have some coffee and biscuits together. She was always so well-meaning and in a way, Tess admired her for it. As they were talking about Charlotte, she realized once more how difficult it must have been for Julia to raise a child, who was the result of her husband's affair with another woman, as her own. Everything was going well, so Tess assumed that this was the perfect moment to ask what she had been longing to know for a long time. She had never received a clear answer to any of her questions on the phone, but now, face to face, it was harder to escape the subject.

"I'm so excited to show Charlotte around on Drover's tomorrow! It's great that she can stay with us for the weekend."

Peter emptied his cup of coffee. "Well, you're certainly not the only one who's excited about it."

"It's the only thing she's been talking about in the past few weeks." Julia added with a smile.

"Peter…one thing I've been wondering about is…what made you change your mind?"

"Change my mind?"

"…with regard to Charlotte. You've been trying so hard to keep us from taking her back to the farm, but now…there's no problem with it." She tried to formulate it as carefully as possible because she knew how difficult Peter could be once he felt "attacked", but somehow, it wasn't working.

"Tess" he sighed. "I didn't try to keep you from taking her back there, you knew my reasons, why it wasn't possible the past few-"

"Yeah, I know, Charlotte was sick, you had different plans for the break, she would have been afraid to stay with 'foreigners' she hasn't seen for a long time, it wouldn't be good to remove her from her home right before her first day of school…" Reciting his specious arguments made her angry. How was it possible that she had never managed to stand up to him? How was it that he had always found a good reason why her niece could not stay with her at her birthplace during the few days a year Tess was able to spend time with her? But that was exactly the point…the few days a year she was there. Could she just come back from Argentina for a vacation and demand to be allowed to take her with her? No, she couldn't, it wasn't her place to do so. She was guilty, she was the one who had broken her promise and left, how could she demand anything? And yet…she could have. She could have. "what was the true reason?"

"I told you-"

"Peter" his wife interrupted him gently. "don't you think they have a right to know?"

"Great…" he muttered, as all eyes turned on her.

"So there is another reason? Please, Julia, if there is one, tell me…I need to know."

"I can't…I'm sorry."

Nick turned to Peter angrily. "When Tess gave Charlotte into your care, you promised you'd never put any obstacles in the way of their contact!"

"Come on, I didn't move to another continent, did I! And you could always see her when you came back!"

Julia laid a hand on his arm. "Sshh, the girls are upstairs…and if you're not going to tell them, I will. We don't have anything to be ashamed of, it was his fault!"

"What on earth are you talking about?" Tess asked desperately.

Peter shook his head, releasing a deep breath. "All right. I think all of us should calm down a bit. Now to your first question, Tess: Since you're moving back here, I can hardly prevent you from taking Charlie to Drover's for a visit. And besides, she has asked me so many questions about it lately…I just think it's good for her to get to know her first home. Ask Alex about all other things."

Right at that moment, Allana entered the living room. She immediately noticed the tense mood. " 'scuse me…mum, do you know where my black shirt with the band logo is?"

"It should be in the dryer."

"It's not."

"Okay" she sighed. "I'll help you look for it." She left the room with her daughter, obviously glad to be out of the line of fire.

"Alex?" Nick was baffled, but only for a moment. Suddenly, everything appeared logical. Peter hadn't wanted Charlotte to come to Drover's with them because he didn't want her to get in touch with Alex. "What happened? Did you fight over something?"

"Yeah, right, because I would keep my daughter away from her mother's home due to a simple argument…please, really, ask him about it. You wouldn't believe me anyway, you're never going to see the other side of things, to you, I'll always be 'the guy who lied to Claire'."

"…and the father of her child." Tess added conciliatory. "Peter, I don't want an argument."

"Neither do I." For a moment, he just sat there, frozen into place. Then, he got up abruptly, gathering the dishes.

"Here, I'll help you…"

"No, thanks. You must be exhausted from the journey."

"Yeah, I think we should leave now to look for a hotel room." She exchanged a quick look with Nick, who nodded. "We're going to pick up Charlotte tomorrow morning around nine thirty, if that's okay with you."

"Sure."

"All right then. I'll go check on the girls."

Tess left the room and went upstairs slowly. She had to admit that this was a pretty house, clean, painted in an earthy shade between brick-red and brown, with an apricot staircase. There were many pictures on the walls, mostly of the three sisters on various occasions. She had to smirk when she noticed one in which the three girls were dressed up as a witch, a sheriff, and an elf. When had that been?

On the first floor, she was immediately able to spot the two girls she was looking for because of their lively conversation. The door to BOM's room was open and she found the children sitting on the floor with two Barbie dolls and a few sea shells. As she was watching them play peacefully, she was certain she would kill Alex Ryan if this was indeed his fault. Well, it was hers, too. She could have tried harder to find out what was going on. But still, Alex definitely owed her an explanation.

"Oh, those are pretty." Tess commented on the dolls. "Mermaids! I wish I'd had a Barbie…"

"They used to be Natalie's. She doesn't like them anymore, she says they're only for babies."

"Really? Well, I don't think I'm supposed to tell you that, but that's actually something adults made up so they could play with their children's old Barbie dolls."

Charlotte laughed, handing Emily a dress for her doll. "Look, you can take the sparkling tail-thingy off, too, so she becomes a woman instead of a mermaid."

"Cool!"

Tess crouched down to meet their eye-level. "I hate to break this up, girls, but we have another car ride ahead of us tomorrow and we still need to go find a hotel room for the night."

"Can't you stay here for tonight, Aunt Tess?"

"Oh yes, please!" Both children looked at her pleadingly. They were really good at this; she hated to object.

"No, we can't be that much of a nuisance for your parents, Charlotte. And it wouldn't be fair either, because they weren't prepared for three people spending the night. But we'll get the whole weekend together from tomorrow on. Come on, Em, let's go."

"Nooo…can't we stay for a little longer?"

"We can't, I'm sorry, it's getting late. You two are going to see each other first thing in the morning!"

"But that's so far away!"

"Emily, I won't discuss this with you any longer." She knew how stubborn her daughter could be, especially in situations like this. "Say bye-bye to Charlotte and we'll leave."

"But-"

"No more but's…I'll count to three and we're going to leave. One…" Her daughter crossed her arms in front of her chest demonstratively and pouted. "Two…"

"And the last number is…three. Emily Claire Ryan, do I have to carry you to the car?" The little girl simply shook her head, but remained seated on the floor, tears of defiance in her eyes. "All right."

She walked over to her niece and gave her a big hug, smiling. "I'll see you tomorrow, Charlotte." Emily looked from one to the other and finally got up, running out of the room and downstairs. "Daddy!" Tess really hoped that Nick would not give in this time, as he sometimes did. That would severely undermine her authority.

"Is she really, really angry now?"

"Don't worry, she'll calm down. We're just all very tired because of the long flight. I'll go look for her in a second."

"Can I take the Barbie dolls with me? I think she likes them a lot."

"You can take anything you want, BOM, as long as it fits into the car. And I'm pretty sure they will."

Charlotte grinned. "You still call me that although I'm not a baby anymore."

"Well, it was your first nickname, you know. But I can call you 'Charlotte', of course, I'm just warning you…you'll hear a lot of 'BOM' once we're on Drover's."

When Tess mentioned the farm, Charlotte's expression suddenly seemed to stiffen, her smile became more forced. "You still want to go there, don't you? I mean if you don't want to, it's okay, we can wait and-"

"No, no! I wanna go there, it's just…I don't really…remember it, except for tiny bits. I don't know anyone…besides you and Nick."

Tess put an arm around Charlotte and sat down on the bed next to her. "I…understand why you're afraid, really, I do. When I went back there for the first time, I didn't know anyone either. But believe me, you'll get to know them quickly. Every time I went there, all of them were asking how you were doing and what you're up to. Remember the biscuits Meg gave me for you? And if…if you really don't like it there, I'll drive you back home anytime you want to, okay? I won't ever force you to stay there."

"I know, it's just…never mind."