My father sent a letter back.
My mother always hated his handwriting. It was messy and usually illegible. The a's looked like u's and the g's looked like y's. But when she saw his atrociously shaped letters printed across the sullied, yellow envelope, she broke into tears. It was one of Those Moments - with a capital 'T' and a capital 'M'; a moment which couldn't be described no matter how proficient you thought you were with words, because words would simply not do it justice.
That night, she invited my aunt over and you tagged along because it was seven o'clock and she couldn't very well leave you on your own. While the adults celebrated and cried in the kitchen, we built a fort in the living room, draping blankets over the sofas and layering the ground with pillows and cushions.
It was fun at first, but after a while it became tedious; the sofas had no grip and no matter how many books we used to weigh down the blankets, they always had a way of coming loose. Several times, I suggested that we stop, but you always insisted that we persevere. I didn't see the point.
Later on, I realised why you had not wanted to give up; it took your mind off the fact that you hadn't heard from your father yet.
