BELLE AND SUE WERE alone in the kitchen, chopping vegetables for a Caesar salad. Tonight’s menu included a giant pot of rice, a giant pot of chicken curry, and salad on the side. For dessert, Sue planned on baking banana cakes, to be served with ice cream. The more work they had to do in the kitchen, the less opportunity Belle had to mope and to pine for her husband.
Belle glanced up at Sue in the middle of slicing a cucumber. ‘Mum, tell me about your other children.’
Her mother-in-law smiled.
‘Well, my eldest, Benjamin, is the Australian Military Attaché in Washington DC. He’s 45, still single. I don’t know why; there’s no shortage of women wanting to marry him.
‘Then, there’s Barry, he’s an Army medic serving with the Coalition but now based in Germany. He’s 43, still single. I don’t
