Oliver, Jeff, Abigail, Sam, and Josie file out of the living room into the hallway. Oliver’s face is mirroring mine except so much worse.

Two sets of footsteps crunch outside on the driveway. Behind Oliver, out the living room window, I see the unfamiliar car and a woman in the driver’s seat who’s slowly getting out. The other footsteps sound like they’re nearing the house but this woman’s hanging onto the car door like it’s a life raft, refusing to let go.

“Mom! Come on!” a voice calls outside, and I see the woman’s face turn. It’s an illusion I’m sure—she can’t see me from out there—but it’s as if for a second our eyes meet.

She’s mid-fifties, I guess, around Lorna’s age. She’s petite; grey-blonde hair trimmed neatly; carefully dressed. And as her gaze locks on our living room window, I see the courage in her eyes, the courage and the fear. It’s so transparent that I know it instantly: the universal parent’s fear of not being enough. The fear of being in some way supplanted; of finding out after so many years of trying so hard, that somehow you haven’t really gotten it right. In this wrung-out moment I sense in her the same prayer I’ve sent up myself in preparation for this day: Let them be lovable, God, but not too much.

My heart squeezes. The woman lets go of the car door at last and pushes it closed, the sound damp and clear in the February air. She steps towards the driveway and out of view of the window frame, and I come back to earth.

“Gillie?” Oliver looks at me.

I nod, and he opens the door.

A girl stands on our doorstep.

I couldn’t even say if she’s pretty. Perhaps she is, perhaps she isn’t, perhaps she’s beautiful simply in the way that youth is beautiful. But to me, right now, she drowns out the world. Though I’m dimly aware of the two women standing behind her it’s as if they’re in shadow; it’s as if the girl is shining, almost. Radiant.

Or is it just me with this feeling, as though I’m looking straight into the sun?

Her eyes rove over us, this little group assembled in the hallway. Her gaze finds me, then Oliver. And she holds out her hand and smiles.

It’s my husband’s smile.

The most beautiful smile in the world.

“Hello,” she says. “I’m Hannah.”

THE END

***

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A letter from the Author