Enough

The doorbell went while I was making toast.

Not exactly the sort of sentence you'd expect to change your life, is it? But that's the thing about mornings like that one. They don't warn you. It was coffee, toast, the radio mumbling away to itself somewhere in the background. The sort of morning you don't remember because you're not supposed to.

I had a butter knife in my hand. Greasy, half-used, toast waiting on the counter behind me. The bell went again, and I remember doing the maths without even meaning to. Too early for deliveries. Too late for salesmen. And nobody I knew ever just turned up at the door anymore. People text. People call. People ask. They don't arrive unannounced, not unless something's happened.

I walked through the hall still holding the knife, because that's what people do. You don't expect your life to change while you're carrying cutlery.

I opened the door.

There was a young woman standing there. Mid-twenties, maybe. Old enough to look like she'd travelled a long way. Young enough to look like she wished she hadn't. Beside her stood a wee boy, five or six at most, clutching a soft toy that had clearly been loved to death.

The young woman looked at me. Then at the knife. Then back at me. I looked at it too.

"Toast," I said.

She smiled. Not because it was funny. Because sometimes people smile when they don't know what else to do.

"Are you T?" she asked.

Nobody had called me that in years. Not properly. Not like that.

"Aye," I said. "Depends who's asking."

She hesitated. The wee boy moved a little closer to her. The young woman took a breath — the kind people take when they've practised a conversation in their head a hundred times, only to forget every word the second the moment arrives. Then she reached into her bag.

I suddenly became aware of ridiculous things. The coffee cooling in the kitchen. The crumbs on the worktop. The butter softening beside the toaster. The fact I was standing in my own doorway holding a butter knife, trying to look like a normal person.

She pulled out a photograph. Folded, creased, handled often. Important enough to carry around.

She held it towards me. I didn't take it straight away.

"It's okay," she said quietly. "You can look."

I took it from her. A group photograph, old enough to belong to another version of my life. Young faces. Arms over shoulders. People who still believed there was always going to be more time. I recognised myself immediately. You always do. Even when you barely recognise the person.

I looked back up at her. She was watching me. Waiting. The wee boy looked up at me too, like he'd known me forever. Somewhere in the house a dog barked.

"I know this sounds mad," the young woman said. "And I'm sorry if I'm wrong."

I said nothing. For once.

She swallowed. Took another breath. The wee boy squeezed her hand.

And then she said it.

"I think you might be my dad."