I laugh. “Yeah. She divides her time between there and Adelaide. Hunter is still coaching football, and Aubree coaches junior basketball.”
“Fascinating.”
I look out to the ocean, where the sun is low in the sky, making it appear a lighter blue and the sun larger than it really is. A line of reddish glitter dances over the water all the way to the shore, breaking only with the waves.
Stopping to admire nature, I pull Charlotte against my front so we can enjoy the view. “It will be warm enough to swim soon,” I whisper in her ear as though that time in the future will also offer us some peace.
It tookCharlotte a few minutes to settle into easy conversation with my friends. The children loved her accent and asked her to repeat several words, and they laughed dramatically, the joke at her expense.
“Enough, now go and watch a movie, or it’s to bed,” Aubree warned.
“One more,” her middle son says. “Say herb again.”
“Erb,” Charlotte repeats and shrugs her shoulders.
The older kids run into the house laughing.
“You need to teach your kids how to speak,” she says dramatically.
We laugh at Charlotte.
“Righteo.”
She shakes her head. “Sometimes, it’s like being on another planet.”
“I adapted,” I remind her. “Now, it’s your turn.”
She stares at me for a minute. “I never considered how hard it was for you, even with the little things.”
“Even with food.” Maddy holds up the herb we were just talking about. “Coriander, not cilantro.”
She nods. “It will take me a while.”
Aubree looks at me as though she is nervous about asking something. “Are you here to stay?”
“I’m here as long as BJ needs me to be.”
She smiles. “Great. I’ll get you to come to the courts where I coach when the time is right.”
“And,” Maddy says excitedly. “I’ll get you out on the station. You can visit the real Australia.”
“Here we go,” Aubree whines. “You’ll hear all about the hardship of living in the outback.”
“Nothin’ wrong with a little education.” Maddy turns to Charlotte, wide-eyed. We have weeks at forty-seven degrees, and you all complain when it’s the high thirties, and you live by the bloody ocean.”
Charlotte nods at my friends, but it’s clear she is confused by the numbers in Celsius.
“Forty-seven is one hundred and sixteen,” I whisper.
“Wow, that’s intense,” she blurts.
Maddy points her stick of cucumber at Charlotte. “I don’t recommend coming in late January or February. You’ll sweat like a crotch on a long-haul flight.”
Charlotte splutters a mouthful of wine. “Oh, excuse me.” She wipes her mouth and smirks. “That’s… different.”
“Maddy.” Her husband, Luke, comes to stand behind her. “Let’s not frighten the tourists.”
“Oh, I’m no longer a tourist,” Charlotte boasts.
