Callum drew a deep breath. “I wish that someday I could have a place like this.”

“You want a rock?” Brody asked.

“No, dickhead. A station. As big as Kerry Creek. Bigger, even. And I’d raise the best cattle in all of Queensland.”

“Why would you want to live on a station?” Brody asked.

“’Cause I like it here,” Callum replied.

Brody shook his head. His older brother had no imagination. Station life was horribly dull, the same thing day after day. There was never anything interesting to do. All the good stuff happened in cities like Brisbane and Sydney. Callum could have the station and Teague could have his plane. Brody knew his dream was the best.

“Dad told me he brought Mum out here when he asked her to marry him,” Callum said, sitting up to scan the horizon.

Teague and Brody glanced at each other, then looked away silently. Brody wasn’t sure why Callum had brought the subject up. Their parents hadn’t been getting along for nearly a year now. When they weren’t arguing, they were avoiding each other. Dinner was usually a shouting match or an endless meal marked by dead silence.

“I want to change my wish,” Brody murmured, sitting up beside Callum. “I wish that Mum and Dad wouldn’t fight anymore. I wish they’d be like they used to be.” He drew a deep breath, fighting back the tears that pressed at the corners of his eyes. “Remember when they used to kiss? When Dad would hug her so hard, she’d laugh? And they’d turn on the radio and dance around the kitchen?”

“Yeah.” Teague braced his elbows behind him. “I remember that.”

The first ten years of Brody’s life had been spent in what he’d believed was a happy family. But then he began to be more aware of his mother’s unhappiness and of his father’s frustration. She hated life on the station and his father didn’t know any other life but the station.