Ava switched on the porch light.
Her father caught her wrist—not hard, but quickly enough to make her turn.
“Leave that off.”
“Why?”
He released her.
Outside, a car stood across the road.
Ava lifted her tablet. The same car appeared in a photograph posted by a woman who had contacted her that afternoon.
Her mother came into the hallway.
“What’s going on?”
Ava handed her the message.
The woman outside was her father’s older sister, Beth.
The sister Ava had been told lived abroad and wanted nothing to do with them.
Her father pulled a folded note from his pocket.
Light on means she knows.
Ava read it.
“You arranged this?”
Beth had written to him asking to meet her niece. He had agreed to tell Ava, but postponed the conversation repeatedly.
Tonight was supposed to be the night.
If the porch light came on, Beth could approach.
“How long has she been waiting?”
“About twenty minutes.”
“No. How many years?”
He didn’t answer.
The estrangement had begun before Ava was born. There had been an argument about caring for their parents, then years of each waiting for the other to apologize.
Ava looked toward her mother.
“Did you know she wanted to meet me?”
“No.”
Her father lowered the note.
“I didn’t know how to explain it.”
Ava switched the light on again.
Then she opened the door.
Beth stepped out of the car slowly, holding an unopened packet of biscuits as though she had forgotten it was there.
“Hello, Ava.”
Ava moved aside.
“We have tea.”
Her father remained in the hallway as Beth entered.
Neither sibling embraced.
But when she hesitated over where to put her coat, he reached for it.
“The hook’s still in the same place,” he said.
Beth looked toward the kitchen.
“I remember.”
End of Narrative
