“I hate you! I never want to see you again!”

Before I could even react, the harsh crash of a slammed door made me wince. A little awkward, I shuffled over and opened it again, taking a few steps out.

“What did you do this time?”

Letting out a bit of a giggle, I turned to Hyraj—not that I ever really called her that these days. Aj, my Aj. “I asked her to wash the dishes she left in her room.”

Aj nodded, then said, “So it is your fault.”

“Yes,” I said, the stuffiness in my chest blown away by her casual tone. Always calm, always patient. Well, she was with others, but not always me. I liked that.

But right now wasn’t the right time for those kinds of thoughts….

“Is she—”

“Yes, I can see her,” Aj said.

A little relieved, I softly smiled and stood beside her. Our little cottage, a little away from a fairly busy town, so not entirely isolated. However, it was a couple hours’ walk to get there. Over the years, we’d basically rebuilt the entire thing. Even dug out the half trench where the sewage pipe was laid ourselves. Cut down the trees to clear some land, then began farming—like I had so long ago.

We didn’t need to, not like we had no money, but it was nice. Experimenting. Something that hadn’t been obvious when I’d come here, obviously plants didn’t grow that quick. Up there on the mountain, the magic was thick, so stuff grew faster and healthier?

Maybe better if I didn’t try and explain it.

Anyway, we didn’t need much land to grow stuff. Aj could put a bit of magic into the ground, the one who actually understood what was happening and trying to work it out properly. Would be kind of a big deal if “magic fertiliser” could be used all over the world to grow crops this fast.

So that kept her busy, and I just tried to make tasty stuff for cooking. I had like twenty different kinds of not-chillis growing on my own plot. Miniature trees, more like shrubs, that grew the garlicy nuts. Herbs too, not really something the people here liked, preferring spices, but I had practised roasting vegetables, so herbs added the milder flavours I wanted.

It was funny how something I’d only learned after coming here could remind me of the good times back in my old world, but cooking did. Even if I still hadn’t tried any meat here, the roasted vegetables, different to anything I’d eaten as a child, brought me back.

“Time heals all wounds” was something I’d heard. Really, what it did was numb the pain. I could still remember the worst of it. Just that, it didn’t hurt like it used to. Or maybe because it felt like someone else’s pain now. What I felt just… empathy for the child I used to be.

Anyway, as bad as I now knew my childhood had been, I wanted to hold onto the kindness. I wanted to remember I was doing the best I could in a terrible situation. It still felt terrible, like I shouldn’t have been allowed to call my childhood abusive, not when I wasn’t beaten or starved or anything as bad as the stuff I’d heard, seen.

But it was.

Looking out into the orchard, barely able to see the shoulder behind a tree, I had learned how important love was. Helly wasn’t our first “fostered” child. However, she was our “worst”.

I couldn’t even think about what state she was in when we rescued her without crying. For almost a year, she wouldn’t make a sound. Flinched if either of us moved towards her at all. Refused to eat if we were in the room, often throwing up after binging on raw vegetables in the night. There was even a month where Aj and I didn’t dare sleep at the same time, making sure someone was always around to check on her, because….

But now she could scream at me. That little Helly, too scared to even look at my face, could scream at me.

At the start, I really had doubted I could do it. All I could think of was how could a broken person help a broken child? But Aj… believed in me. Or, well, maybe not believed, but trusted.

Love is gentle, firm, forgiving, bright, beautiful. Magic for people, it was whatever they needed it to be. Put another way, giving people what they needed was love, and love was the feeling of having someone else care for you.

I never knew how powerful it was to be cared for until I met Aj. Maybe, if not her, someone else would have come along. Maybe not. I liked to think I was strong enough that I would have healed without her, but I was glad for her help. Something like a splint that helped the bone set right.

Becoming that splint for others, it made me happy.

There were days I felt terrible, like we were making Helly (or one of the other two we’d fostered) worse, or times when I struggled to separate them and their bad behaviour in my head, but those times always passed. Not to mention, I could talk to Aj and she always took them out for a bit to give me a break, and if she ever needed a break, I could do the same.

It was wonderful not being alone. Wonderful having someone I could trust, having someone who cared for me, and giving that feeling to children who needed it felt wonderful too.

As if hearing my thoughts, a distant chatter broke through the birdsong. Coming round the bend, some people walked beside a wagon pulled by a horse-rhino that was, really, quite sweet. This one loved my not-carrots.

Sisi was one of them, her daughter only two-and-a-half years old, giggling away as the wagon rocked her. Though she had a “seatbelt”, an older girl also in the wagon kept a good grip on her. Little Herfle—eight, now?

How time flew.

Herfle was the cousin of the first girl we fostered, but Shisha and her wife were raising Herfle like their own daughter, her parents having died—or just left, we still didn’t know. And then there was our other ex-foster, Jal, hanging off her girlfriend like when we last saw them.

Maybe it wasn’t too strange that both our fosters had, well, ended up gay. All of them, including Helly, had trauma with men that meant being adopted by a straight couple was impossible; while me and Aj couldn’t fully adopt them, we were allowed to “foster” them. Aj handled the paperwork stuff, but we were technically listed as an orphanage… maybe?

Anyway, I knew it wasn’t like their trauma made them gay. It probably was easier to discover it when they could see me and Aj living happily on our own. All I cared about, though, was that they were happy—and they were.

That said, I did always feel a bit sad that Uncle Arl didn’t come on these days. He did at other times, and I was very thankful for it, helping our fosters get used to being around men in a safe environment. But there were a lot of women when we all met up and not really anyone his age, so I understood. Never dated anyone else, but, after Sisi moved out, his friend moved in. I doubted there was anything romantic between them, but the two looked cute together, like a pair of cheeky brothers how they always laughed together.

Sisi’s husband sometimes kept them company, sometimes came along to watch Lallie so Sisi could relax, but I didn’t blame him either when he stayed back. Plenty of us here happy to watch Lallie—she was actually named after her grandmother, but then ended up loving lal so much that Neffie nicknamed her Lallie and it stuck. After all, her grandmother loved lal too.

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Neffie, well, she maybe loved the city a bit much. I didn’t know if even she knew who her son’s father actually was, but he grew up with plenty of love, Neffie making many friends, living with a handful of roommates over the years. As far as I knew, she wasn’t bi, but I didn’t pry. Her mother absolutely adored her grandson, yet hated Neffie’s life choices, so I tried to give Neffie space, listening more than asking.

Despite me and Aj not being related to any of them, all the kids called us aunty. I loved that so very much. “Mum” still felt like a bit much, but aunty was good. Not that I would have stopped the fosters from calling me that.

Aunty Loulou and Aunty Hyraj. Well, except Helly. We were still Louise and Hyraj to her and that was fine. I didn’t do this because I wanted them to love me, I did it to try and help children who had no one else to help them. That feeling of doing good was my reward.

Without me saying anything, Aj took the lead in greeting everyone. I was happy Helly felt comfortable enough to scream at me, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be screamed at, a little shaken up. And Aj just knew that, because of course she did.

Even after all these years… I felt loved, no, preferred. Out of all the wonderful people in our lives, she still preferred me.

“How is Danny?” Aj asked Neffie. There were quite a few familiar nicknames to my world, not too much choice when you shorten down a name and add “y” or “ie” to the end.

“Well, he takes after his father,” Neffie said, pausing to giggle at her own joke. “I haven’t seen him for a few months. He sounded happy in his letter, but Kroustoa is so far….”

Hyraj nodded along with her hand—something I messed up even more now than when I first came here. “My parents say the company has a good reputation, so he should be safe,” she said, a bit hushed.

Meanwhile, Herfle helped Lallie down, Sisi and Shisha close enough to react, but giving their kids room to grow.

It still felt awkward to me, finding the right distance. Wanting to help and not wanting to smother. Especially with our fosters, it was easy to think the best thing for them was keeping them away from the world, letting them be happy. But they weren’t pets.

Naya, Shisha’s wife, came over to me and, unsurprisingly, she asked, “Where’s our Helly, then?”

They weren’t exactly legally married, but there was nothing stopping people from drawing up those kinds of “contracts”. Aj and I had some too. If either of us died, the other would get everything. Stuff like that. And unusual for even straight couples here, I took her surname, not like I had any attachment to my own.

Anyway, as Shisha’s wife, Naya knew a lot about her past. It made her extra considerate of Helly and Jal too. “We had a bit of a…” I said, struggling to find the right word.

Naya understood and looked over to where Helly was, not exactly an uncommon place to find her. “Let Big Cousin Naya go say hello.”

“Okay,” I said, forcing the smile. It wasn’t exactly jealousy, or envy? But I sometimes wished I knew how she got on so well with Helly.

With her going off, Jal—or rather, her girlfriend—came over to say hello. “Aunty Loulou, my thanks for having us again,” she said, such a sweet talker.

“Oh please, no need to be so formal. How is Grahtkroustad treating us? Krouna began working at Uncle Arl’s company, didn’t she? Let me know if he isn’t paying enough,” I said, not entirely sure what I was saying, still bad at adjusting to new people. Well, new adults. I hadn’t really had a real job or had any of the worries adults were supposed to have. It, um, helped to marry into money.

Jal giggled and, stepping forward, gave me a big hug, which included lifting me into the air like it had ever since she’d just kept growing bigger than me. “You’re not allowed to sound like any old adult, okay Aunty?”

I had to wait for her to put me down to catch my breath. “Please, Jal, not in front of the guests,” I whispered, barely managing to sound at all chastising.

“What guests? It’s all family here,” she said, giggling again as she returned to Krouna’s side. Well, she actually stood behind Krouna, wrapping her girlfriend up in a hug—and Krouna looked equally as pleased with the situation as embarrassed. Jal had that kind of effect on people.

Herfle and Lallie wandered over next, their parents right behind, taking away some of my awkwardness as I could indulge in asking them all sorts of questions. While I did, Sisi and Shisha came over for a hug each.

What they’d done, where they’d been, what they’d eaten—my favourite questions to ask a child, whether they were three or thirty.

Lallie had a lot to say about the wagon ride, including that they had to stop twice: once because she thought she needed to “do wee-wee” and a second time because she actually needed to “do poo-poo”.

Herfle had gone on a boat across a lake the week before, Shisha filling in that it was with a boy, which made Herfle very insistent that “it’s not like that”. Apparently, she didn’t like him because he was friendly with her best friend, a girl. From the looks of the other adults, none of us were quite sure which of the two she was actually jealous of, but we were a bit of a biased group.

Sisi and Shisha, for their turn, had a lot to say about the food in the nearby town. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was good or bad since a lot of it was about the cost. Was three Krouen expensive for dinner? I had no clue, just that they were very passionate about it.

Aj pulled Neffie back over then, Herfle eager to hear about Big Cousin Danny, basically her idol. She liked how he hadn’t treated her like a baby, maybe because he grew up around so many adults. Then Sisi pestered Neffie about what she was going to do now she wasn’t a full-time mother, talks of travelling to keep her from worrying, soon devolving into a few different conversations going on at the same time.

Lively. I didn’t hate it, really did love it, but it also left me feeling out. Never had slipped out of feeling like I wasn’t part of groups, only watching over them. Like with the little ones back in my old world. Not a bad feeling, just hard for me to step in. I didn’t like being pushy. Someone else always had something to say, so I let them go first.

“What do you think, Lou?” Aj said, squeezing my hand.

I blinked, taking a moment to react. “Well, I like roasting, but I’m in all day. If they’re working, they want to eat soon after coming home, don’t they?” I said, looking at Sisi and Shisha, glad to see them both “nodding”.

“Exactly! I tell him, if he wants a roast like Aunty, then he can throw them in after he picks up Lallie,” Sisi said, ending with a pout.

Shisha laughed, pulling Herfle into a hug. “If my little one can learn how to do it, I’m sure a grown man can,” she said.

Herfle sort of wriggled for a moment, then beamed at the praise.

“Oh he can, but he gets too distracted playing with Lallie, doesn’t he?” Sisi said, picking up her own daughter into a hug, swinging side-to-side.

Just like Uncle Arl used to do with her.

Hit by that sudden wave of nostalgia, I felt my eyes tear up, excusing myself to check on the food. Gave Aj’s hand a squeeze as I left, letting her know I was fine.

Sort of happened this time of year. The anniversary of me coming to this world. It made more sense to me to celebrate this as my birthday, at least with my family. My actual birthday was something for me and Aj alone.

This year especially, I had almost spent as long in this world as my old one. Eighteen years. Eighteen long, wonderful, beautiful years.

Inside, I walked to the kitchen and didn’t find the moment alone I was looking for.

“Aunty Loulou,” Naya said, smiling, as she dried the plates Helly was washing.

Helly froze up for a second, then put the last plate on the side. For a bit longer, she just stood there awkwardly, but eventually turned to me, staring at the floor. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

Clearing her throat, Naya gave Helly a nudge.

“My sorry for… shouting when Louise was… polite,” Helly said, struggling to put to words what exactly she was apologising for. I doubted I’d do any better in her place, hard to explain why you scream at someone without sounding like you were just making excuses.

Though she’d grown so much since she came here a few years ago, I was still a head taller than her, so I lowered myself down to match her height. And I waited for her to look at me.

One second, ten, then she slowly raised her head. I smiled. “My sorry too,” I whispered. “I know Helly doesn’t leave plates in her room unless something is wrong, and I know she gets nervous when everyone comes over. But truth told, I get nervous too, so I kept thinking I needed more plates for dinner and not thinking if she needed some help. So my sorry. Helly is much more important to me than some plates.”

She kept staring at me, up until her eyes started to water. The next second, maybe so I wouldn’t see, she darted forward and hugged me. I hugged her back, but not so tight that I’d hurt her.

When we fostered Shisha, Uncle Arl had told me about that. How you reach a point where you love a child so much all you can think about is not hurting them. I didn’t understand at first, having spent so long looking after children and not really thinking that way, but I eventually did with my fosters and Danny and Herfle and Lallie. These moments where I wanted them to know how much I loved them, cherished them, and wanted to give them the world.

By the time Helly let go of me, Naya had left—but Aj was there. “Did my sweeties need any help?” she asked.

I went to tell her no, the first word on the tip of my tongue, then swallowed it and looked at her with a smile. “We should get to serving. Right, Helly?”

“Yeah, Aunty,” she said, then very quickly stood up and busied herself with taking out the big serving plates I kept for special occasions.

Leaving me there with a goofy smile. Aj leaned in, whispering, “Well done, Aunty.”

There were hard days, times when I felt like a complete failure, and months where it felt like we weren’t making any progress. Then there were moments like these that I could cherish for the rest of my life.

A simple, but satisfying, life.