When Night Falls (Complete)

4

JOSI

Her family come to visit that day. Despite the fact that they live miles away, physical contact with them still isn't limited. Visits home are an occasional thing for Josi, and the trip between New York City and Northern Virginia isn't that great a distance, which just makes the process even more convenient.

Only when she sees her parents does it come to pass how much she misses them. A bit dramatic, seeing as the last trip home was only a week ago. But the sentiment remains the same. It's been well over five years since she left home; four spent in a university, and the remainder under an apartment with Bradley. Prior to that change, a household with her parents was the par for the course.

Then comes Aspen who gives her an embrace worthy of a six year old charged with energy. "Josi! I missed you."

Josi has to squat down to meet her sister. Then with a smile, asks her, "My visit last weekend wasn't enough?"

Aspen shakes her head, and the beads on the edge of her braided hair all clatter. "You stayed a single day only."

The disappointment comes to Josi in the form of a pout, which all but melts right through her. She gathers Aspen's hands into her own. "How about you come visit me next time?"

Aspen begins bouncing. Too much excitement to contain. "Can I, really?"

Josi nods and receives one last embrace from Aspen, then heads for where the rest of her family is in the living room. Her parents brought with them drinks as they always do, and when Josi visits, she returns the favor. Though she suspects the wine they bring her are just the ones she gifts them.

Josi is a carbon copy of her parents. The height she gets from her father and the looks from her mother-or as they often told her teenage self, "the perfect mix." Even now as the years have passed, she sees herself more in them. Though there have been increasing bleats about how difficult it is aging, particularly from her mother who says hitting forty is like the second bullet sent to finish the first's job. Josi thinks it's an exaggeration.

Then there's her father whose love for literature, and what Josi describes as "influencing the masses", has landed him a job as an English professor. He speaks with so many grammatically condensed sentences that it has even begun rubbing off on Aspen.

"This juice isn't eloquent enough."

Josi swallows down laughter. "That's not really what that means."

Aspen takes one more sip from the juice box. "Well, how do I make it taste not eloquent?"

From their mother, "Let's ask your father. Maybe he'll start reading you the dictionary during bedtime."

"Great idea, Sofia." He tells his wife, with a tone that lets Josi know he failed to read into the sarcasm. "Starting early is always a good thing." Then he takes Aspen to have her juice box swapped for a better one.

Bradley arrives later when ideas for dinner have begun surfacing. He pitches his own idea of pot roast which everyone thinks is the winning contestant. Then they get right down to it as the sun begins disappearing behind the horizon. Even Aspen is there helping with peeling potatoes, an idea she herself came up with and wouldn't take no for an answer. She butchers it to the point where it becomes inedible.

Once they've all settled down for dinner, Aspen takes off digging into her food as though it were a race, and has to be decelerated by her mother. "Sweety, slow down."

"Shawwry," She gulps down the last of the meal with a glass of water. "Can I have my dessert now?"

Their father sighs. "We just started eating."