As she got up to go to the door, I picked up one of the logs from the basket. I had just placed it on the fire and was in the process of nudging it into place with the poker when I heard a cry from the hallway.

I dropped the poker and ran into the hall. The door was half open. Mama was in the porch, crouched over, her hands on her face. She looked like she’d fallen.

‘Mama, what’s happened? Are you okay?’ I rushed to her side.

And then the door opened fully and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

Standing there, in a suit that was hanging off him, wisps of hair on an otherwise bald head, deep shadows under eyes that were little more than dark sockets and a thin, sticklike body that I could not equate with the larger-than-life man I knew, was my father.

‘Papa?’

I stared at him. I couldn’t move. Was he real? Was this really happening?

And then his bruised, chapped lips broke into a smile and he said, ‘Well, are you going to let me in, son?’ And suddenly, the dark, rainy day exploded into sunshine.

‘Papa! Papa! It’s really you!’ I cried, pulling the door wide open and throwing my arms around his neck. ‘I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it!’

Papa wrapped his thin arms around me and held me close. ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘I’m really here.’

And then Mama was beside us, and we were hugging and laughing and hugging some more, and he was kissing her all over her face and we were all crying.

Mama took his hand. ‘Come. Come into the warmth,’ she said. ‘Come sit by the fire.’

I followed them into the sitting room. We barely spoke. All I wanted to do was drink him in. He was home! He was here. Right here with us. Papa had come home.

But the warm silence quickly started to feel strange. Awkward, stilted. Too heavily filled with questions that we didn’t dare ask, experiences we weren’t brave enough to share.

The silence grew darker and bigger. It was filling the room.

‘Papa, there’s someone I want you to meet,’ I said, as an excuse to get away as much as anything else.

I had to process this new reality, this new father, this broken man who didn’t look strong enough to hold all the love I wanted to heap on him.

Mama understood. ‘Go and get her,’ she said. ‘She should be part of this moment.’

I gave Papa a quick, awkward hug before leaving them to go and get Annie.

By the time we came back to the apartment, something had changed. My parents were holding hands, looking into each other’s eyes in a way I remembered.