Lucky

My brother walked into the room, breathless with laughter, a beer in one hand and his mobile in the other. Accompanying him was Sue, his wife and Best Friend. She was my Best Friend too and we had grown very fond of each other before they were even married. It was storm season, when the thunder and lightning came with the rain.

“On the following Friday, we packed our bags and planned our escape,” he was saying to someone on the phone.

“What’s that?” I asked, all ears.

“Oh, Belinda, didn’t you hear?” Sue’s eyes popped as she spoke with me, surprised I hadn’t kept up with the gossip.

“No, Sue. I have been snowed under with lots of work to do. Haven’t even had time to look at the News let alone keep up with family business.”

Sue stared at me in silence, as I felt great guilt for not keeping in contact. They had been away on a camping trip, while I had stayed home to catch up with the extra workload my Freelance Writing Business had generated that month.

But my brother, Troy, who was still laughing, hung up the phone.

“Well, Belinda, the river came up after the massive storm last week. Water flooded the camping grounds where we were staying, turning it into a temporary island. Only 4WD vehicles could get through. Not even our little tinny was useful, as the flood wasn’t high enough for it.”

I closed my mouth, becoming aware that it was open as I stared at him in disbelief. Normally, the camping grounds where he and Sue frequented, didn’t flood at this time of year.

Sue took up the rest of the story, as Troy stopped long enough to gulp at his beer.

“But then, on Friday, the river flooded even more, and so we had only a small window of about 2 hours to escape. We packed up our camping equipment and stashed it in our sedan. Then, we threw all our important possessions into the tinny, before heading back to dry land. The river was high enough during that little bit of time to use the tinny.”

Troy was nodding. “And both Sue and I had our daughter’s birthday party to get back in time for.”

“Lucky…” was all I could manage to say in response.