On Dit Edition 81.8 - Hearsay

soon they were on the opposite side of the street. The car came to a halt behind a van advertising cleaning supplies.

Olivia turned off the ignition, shifted in her seat, and turned her body toward Lucy.

‘Right. How are we going to do this?’

‘How are we going to do this.’ Lucy stared forward, and repeated the question as if it were a statement. They both looked at the house across the road, inconspicuous among the rows of others just like it. This house contained a man. This man was half the reason they were both alive. The man who, twenty-three years earlier, had left them and their mother with a surprise parting gift of a decade’s worth of gambling debt.

His screen door looked so unwelcoming, the unlit porch so dark, and the path across the gravel impossible to navigate. Olivia did her best to form words in her mind that would be of some use to her little sister, but she had never drawn such a blank.

Lucy spoke first. ‘We’ve come all the way here. And he’s been here the whole time.’

‘I know.’

‘We could wait, see if he comes outside, and get a look at him.’ Lucy stared at the front door. Olivia did not reply. They really had not considered a plan of action once they found the house.

‘Or a note?’

‘What –’ Olivia stopped. She thought she saw movement from the house, but it was only a shadow cast by the bright streetlights, shifting uneasily in the breeze. ‘What would we put in a note?’

‘Um, hi, it’s your kids, remember us?’ They laughed together, at the magnitude of what they were doing, and at the triviality of trying to convey it in the number of words that would fit on any page.

‘Dear dad. How’s tricks?’ They laughed harder. ‘Miss ya lots, give us a ring.’ Lucy had tears in her eyes, eyes that were fixed on that screen door.

‘What if he comes out and sees us?’ Olivia asked, regaining her breath.

‘Hi pops, thought we’d drop by,’ Lucy proposed, her voice attaining a shrill loudness.

This sparked something, and they laughed until their laughter died out. Silence again.

‘But really. Shall we just rip off the band-aid?’ The silence seemed harsher now.

‘I don’t know. I’ll go if you will.’

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