Chapter 20

This is your home

And always will be

You take it with you

When you go

"You got everything?" Tess asked once more, sounding stressed out. She was handing another plastic bag to Nick, who stored it in the back of the car. Somehow, their niece had accumulated a lot of stuff during her stay, stuff that hadn't fit into her small suitcase.

It was amazing, Alex thought, how could a seven-year-old own so many things? On the other hand, he couldn't help feeling a certain degree of satisfaction at the thought of Peter seeing all this. Yes, they had spoiled her, but what wrong could a little overindulgence do? If she wasn't growing up here, she should at least love the place as much as possible. And people were wrong, to a degree, love could be bought.

Charlotte nodded, throwing another yearning glance at the training yard.

Tess sighed, following her gaze. "You already said goodbye to Gaddy, Charlotte. Twice." She ran a hand through her niece's hair, readjusting the small butterfly hairclip. "You need to get going, your dad's expecting you back for dinner."

Charlotte took the hairclip back out, trying to straighten her wavy hair with one hand. Alex smiled, although it was odd how Tess kept concentrating on these little details. She was buzzing around, arranging this, fixing that, putting things into order. "Have you got your towel, as well? And all your toys? Are you sure? Oh wait, it'll be a long drive, let me get you some water-"

"Tess, we already put some into the basket. There's plenty" Meg tried to calm her down. "She's all set."

Nick put a hand on his niece's shoulder. "Come on, Charlie" he said softly. "Time to go."

"Nooo" Emily whined, clinging to her cousin's arm.

But we'll be here

And you belong

It's important that you know

Jodi cleared her throat in a very unreal sounding manner. "Ahem! Don't you think you forgot something?"

Tess threw her a questioning look, before her face lit up. "Oh, hang on, that's right. We've got a present for you."

"Pressies?" Charlotte inquired with sparkling eyes.

"It's from all of us. Well, actually, it was Alex's idea."

"That's right, it's all the result of my brilliant mind" he winked with a smirk.

"What is it?" BOM asked.

"It's a surprise!" Tess shouted quickly, throwing her daughter a warning glare.

Emily shut her mouth with an unusual amount of self-control, but only for a moment. "Can I go get it, Mummy?" A short nod from her mother was enough to send her running back into the house.

Charlotte looked back and forth between her aunts, uncle, Meg and Alex, smiling hesitantly, although her excitement was clearly visible. She was holding Pipo, a soft, white dog, the only stuffed animal she had brought, tightly clutched to her chest. Alex had only seen her carry it around only once before, when Emily had wanted to play with it.

She was tall for her age, but somehow, seeing her with the stuffed animal made her seem more vulnerable, made him realise that she was still very young. And, in a way, that was consoling, really. There were many more childhood years to come, many more visits she would spend at Drover's.

Know we love you

Know you're precious

One day soon you'll understand

Emily came back with a broad smile on her face and a medium-sized box, wrapped in red gift paper.

"Go on, give it to her" Nick encouraged his daughter.

"That's for you" the little girl declared generously, passing the present on to her cousin. "I got one for my birthday, but-"

"Emily!" five adult mouths exclaimed almost simultaneously.

"Come here." Meg took Em aside. "Let Charlie open it. We don't want to spoil the surprise, do we?"

"Go on, open it" Jodi repeated impatiently with an excited grin on her face.

After a few unsuccessful attempts to remove the ribbon from the box carefully, Charlotte simply tore the paper off. A plain brown box appeared, but when she took the lid off, her jaw dropped. "Oh…wow! That is so cool!"

Alex smiled, that look was priceless. He had been looking forward to seeing her expression when she opened the present all day. For a moment, they watched, letting her take in the sight, before everyone started chatting away all at once, wanting to explain something.

Charlotte merely stood there, taking her gift out of the box, touching it carefully, unaffected by all of the impatient talk that asked for some sort of reaction. Meg shook her head, watching four pairs of hands trying to seize hold of the light brown hat. They had already taken it from Charlotte and were putting it on her head, telling her how lovely, pretty or cool it looked.

"I reckon it would look much better if you let her breathe" Alex commented with a smirk.

Nick laughed, while the others moved back a bit.

Not today

And not tomorrow

But you will know

You'll know in time

You'll understand

BOM felt the hat with her hand and twirled, beaming broadly. "How does it look?"

Alex returned the smile. "Smashing! Fits perfectly."

Jodi nudged Tess, gloating. "See, I told you!"

Tess nodded and approached her niece again, closing a button of her light jacket, which had opened. "It's a pity Stevie can't be here. She helped pick it out. Don't forget to say thank you to her, too, sometime."

Charlotte jumped. "Oh, oh, I forgot! Thank you!"

"You're welcome."

"We figured you needed a hat, now that you're gonna come for a visit more often" Nick explained. "You can't run around like this all the time. Although some people never wear theirs." He looked at his daughter.

Emily scowled. "It makes my hair sweaty, Daddy! Though it looks pretty."

"I'll wear it all the time" Charlotte pledged. "Even to school."

Alex smirked. "Not sure your teachers would like that."

"Claire used to do that" Meg said reminiscently.

She was right, Alex thought, Claire had done that. It was a detail which had escaped his mind, like many other things. Sometimes, he could picture her so clearly and it seemed as if she should come round the corner any minute, at other times, there were little things he couldn't retrieve, the tone of her voice when she would say this or that, things that had become blurred by time. He wouldn't have thought that possible.

But here they were, all of them, and they smiled, and laughed, and lived – who would have expected that? Seven years, painfully close, yet a lifetime away.

He looked at Charlotte. He smiled.

Go with our blessing

Hurry back

There'll be such joy when you return

"Anyway…" Meg hugged the child. "Take care, sweetheart. And don't forget to call when you arrive. We'll see you back here really soon, okay?"

After Jodi and Emily had said their goodbyes, the latter rather reluctant to do so, it was his turn, inevitably. He didn't really know what to say or do, this wasn't his sort of thing. Charlotte was staring at him with a wondrous expression. He cleared his throat. "Well, I…guess we will see you back real soon."

She nodded.

"Would be nice."

"Yeah."

There was so much more he wanted to say, so much he wanted to explain, but this was not the right time. Not yet. It was a consolation to think that one day, he would be able to tell her everything, however, there was a possibility that that time would never come. He wanted her to know, to understand…what exactly?

"We'll miss you" he mumbled quickly, so he wasn't sure whether she had heard it at all.

Charlotte didn't answer, but made two quick steps forward and hugged him around the waist, which caused her hat to fall down. He held on to her for a moment, swallowing down that strange lump in his throat, then patted her back lightly and let go of her. "Bye." His own voice sounded foreign, distant to him.

Yes we'll be here

We'll always love you

That's all you need to know

Finally, Tess pulled her niece into a tight embrace. She kissed her cheek, stroked her hair and whispered something that wasn't discernable to him. The girl clung to her for a moment, before her aunt moved back carefully and smiled. "See you soon, BOM."

There was another, final hug from Emily, another ascertainment that they would be allowed to talk on the phone soon enough, but after that, there was nothing left to delay it any further. Charlotte grabbed her hat, got inside the car with her uncle and, under much waving from everyone, Nick drove off with her. Emily ran after the car for a few metres, but gave up quickly.

Alex watched them vanish in the distance at a rapid speed. A bit of dust spiralled upward where the wheels had touched the dry earth, and was gone again. He could see Charlotte waving, turned around in her seat –she should really put on her seatbelt- until she, too, became indistinct, a dot in a small, red vehicle.

It was Meg who was first to break up the round. "I'll put the kettle on."

"I'm definitely up for a cuppa" Jodi agreed.

Alex nodded. "Me too."

"Mummy?"

Emily's voice drew his attention to Tess, who was still gazing at the road thoughtfully, where there was nothing to be seen anymore. She wasn't crying, but her eyes were a bit watery and she seemed strangely stiff. "Go and help Auntie Meg, honey. I'll be right there."

"Come on, we'll go make some tea for everyone." Meg took the little girl's hand, smiling.

"With cookies?"

"You already had some this morning. You're gonna be sick."

"No, I'm not." She looked back at her mother again, before going back to the house with Meg reluctantly.

"You can never have too many cookies" Jodi remarked, following them. "Except for this one time, at school, when Taylor Pascoe got boxes and boxes sent from her mum –they were supposed to last till Christmas- but we had a pyjama party and somehow, this bet came up over who could eat the most, and my friend Kate got awfully sick. She didn't really want to participate at first, but then Will Nolan –who was an idiot, anyway-…"

Alex looked back at Tess. "You all right?"

"Sure." She smiled half-heartedly. "Fisher is not the end of the world, remember?"

"Guess not. You'll see her way more often now."

"I know."

Yes, we love you

Hold the feeling

When you have the words to say

You'll understand

Before tomorrow

That this had to be the way

As Tess turned around and headed back to the house, he smiled to himself. No, Fisher wasn't the end of the world. It was going to be okay, all of them were going to be fine, he knew that now. Somehow, they had always been. They had survived through everything, and if he had gotten anything out of it, it was that somehow, life went on. For all the mistakes he had made, all the guilt nagging at him, he knew one thing now: He was lucky. Although he was still looking for something more, things were more than all right the way they were already.

And with great perplexity, he noticed that the gaping, indistinct hole he felt more or less strongly at different times didn't hurt as much anymore. It was just sort of there, really, but not as something that drained all happiness from his life. And he could look at Charlotte, and be thankful for his second chance. And he could look at Stevie, and…well, life was full of possibilities. For the first time in years, he felt a sense of direction.

As for Charlotte, she was going to be fine, and wasn't that what mattered most? It wasn't about forgetting, he thought, but about letting go of the past. And still, he found himself picturing that other life they had never led every once in a while. That probably wouldn't change.

What strange thoughts for an ordinary morning. Alex turned around and headed back to the house to have a cup of tea with his friends, reminding himself not to stay for too long, because his help was needed to round up the cattle.

Roy was lying on the front porch. "Come here, boy!" The dog merely raised its head for a brief moment before putting it back on its paws, too lazy to get up.

"Silly old bugger."

Not lost anymore.

You'll understand