Delivery

"Aren't you going to get that?"

"No, it'll just be an Amazon delivery. They'll leave it on the doorstep. Go on, carry on."

I sipped my coffee and nodded at Mel to continue.

"Well, and then he said that he just wasn't feeling ..."

But the doorbell interrupted Mel again. Ringing more insistently this time, whoever was out there holding the bell push in for longer. Trrriiinnnnng.

"Doesn't sound like Amazon."

"Hold that thought, I'll be right be back."

I set my cup down on the coaster on the coffee table, a little irritated to be honest, because I'd been waiting all week to hear why Mel's husband had decided out of the blue that their marriage of seventeen years was over. I actually harrumphed in annoyance as I marched down the hallway to the front door and then flung it open dramatically with a massive what plastered across my face.

"Jenny?" the woman said, hesitantly.

She looked slightly terrified, well, her eyes did. Her mouth was timidly smiling. I had no idea who she was. She could have been a new delivery driver, out on her first day, panicking about the impossible number of deliveries she was supposed to make in one day. But I couldn't see any parcel. Or any of those identical white vans they all drive. And she was too well dressed in a royal blue silky blouse that cardboard boxes and staples would have a field day snagging and catching on.

"Yes." I said it assertively. Definitively. Indicating it was already the end of the conversation and not to even try to bother selling me a cheaper electricity tariff, sign me up for Oxfam donations, or convince me to convert to Jehovah Witness. Or worse still, vote Tory. I was already pushing the door to shut, regretting having opened it quite so widely in my theatrical annoyance.

"I'm Katy." She said it quickly, like shooting a dart, obviously sensing I wasn't a woman whose time could be wasted.

"I'm your, um, I'm, I'm..."

I huffed impatiently, preferring the shooting dart technique to this prevaricating.

"…your sister."

The words I'm not interested, thanks, froze in my mouth as the last word out of hers, sister, ricocheted round my brain. I must have looked like a goldfish, as I opened and closed my mouth again, my eyes bulging out of their sockets in confusion. I held the door completely still, halfway between closed and open, gripping the solid wood tightly.

"I don't have a sister." I wanted it to sound like a fact. Because it was a fact - I didn't have a sister. But my voice betrayed me and wobbled a little as the words came out.

"You do now." she said, her smile still uncertain, nervous.

"That's now how sisters work."

How ridiculous. What was this woman thinking? Turning up on my doorstep and claiming to be my sister. I eyed her more closely. She looked about the same age as me, perhaps a couple of years older, forty tops. And she looked nothing like me. Well apart from the same blonde hair, but that could be dyed. And maybe her eyes were the same blueish grey but millions of people in the world had the same colour eyes. Ridiculous. You don't just get a new sister, aged thirty-five, like a new fridge-freezer. Boyfriend maybe. Chlamydia maybe. Sister - definitely not.

Her smile vanished and was replaced with a more solemn, serious look. No, it was crestfallen - that was a more accurate description.

"Sorry. I knew I would do this all wrong. I mean how are you meant to do something like this?"

She sighed heavily, her shoulders lifting to her ears as she breathed in and then sagging in defeat as she breathed out. Meanwhile, I was still goldfishing in the doorway.

"Can I start again?"

She was genuinely asking for permission. I could have said no. I should have said no, maybe. And then life would have carried on as normal. My little, safe, suburban, insular life. Me, with my boring financial analyst job working from home, my two darling cats Benji or Bobo, the weekly trip to Tesco, comforting Mel through her marriage break-up, and the occasional bloke with benefits when my libido needed something messier than Duracell operated.

"Go on." I said it as if I'd set a stopwatch and she had to give me the elevator pitch of her story in under thirty seconds. I held the door more tightly, ready to slam it shut if necessary. Although I think I already knew it wouldn't be necessary.

The words tumbled out of her like she'd been holding in them for far too long and they were bursting at the seams to spill out. It was like opening the lid on a pressure cooker and the steam whistling out. She gave a good elevator pitch. I had no idea whether it was true or not obviously, but she said enough in thirty seconds for me to realise this was not a conversation to be had on my doorstep with neighbours walking past. This was a conversation that needed some privacy. So, I told her to come in, opening the door wider again, standing back against the wall to make way for her to step into my hallway.

She might have been a mad axe murderer in a royal blue silky blouse, but I had Mel sitting on my sofa, and that seemed like protection enough. That makes Mel sound like some superhero, which she's not at all - she's just Mel from the Sunday park run club and the pair of us do more walking and talking than running. What I mean is, I had safety in numbers. And frankly, Katy appeared far too timid to be a threat, despite this incredibly brave thing she had just done, all on her own.

Now, there are two important pieces of information I should share with you.

Firstly, Mel’s husband, Jacob, or I should say, now ex-husband, was such a cliché. Shagging his secretary. A pretty, ambitious little thing, who fluttered her eyelashes and sashayed about the office. Jacob’s ego, along with his you know what, was suitably massaged. Mel, fit and gorgeous as she is in her Adidas trainers and leggings, became old and boring and was replaced with a new toy. The new toy got promoted, got powerful and ditched Jacob. He tried to make reparations with Mel who told him where he could shove his…well, I’m sure you can fill in the blank for yourself.

Secondly, all the time over the last fifteen years that I had been unsuccessfully trying to find out something, anything, about my natural parents, Katy had been doing exactly the same. Except for timid and brave Katy had done it successfully. She was two and half years older than me and had been taken off our mother by social services before she was one year old. Our mother then had me, but social services were involved before I was even born and I was taken off her at birth. It’s not clear who either of our fathers are, or even if we share the same father or not.

Our mum, by the way, is lovely. She pulled her life together much later on in life and has many regrets about her misspent youth, including not being able to tell us anything about our fathers. Katy and I both suspect there are things she could tell us but that are better left unsaid. She’s over the moon we found her. Well, it was that Katy found her obviously.

My adoptive parents were extremely concerned. They were worried I was walking into a major disappointment when I told them I was going to meet her. But they understood my need to know. They’ve all met now and the relief is palpable. This Christmas we’re all having lunch together. At Katy’s house. Katy who has never cooked a Christmas lunch before in her life because she normally escapes somewhere tropical over the festive season and has lunch served to her on the beach, is now cooking a turkey and all the trimmings for nine people. Me, my adoptive parents, my adoptive grandmother who refuses to be left out of anything, my birth mother and her husband, his two sons from a previous marriage, and of course Katy. I’d bring Benji and Bobo if I could, but one sight of the cat carrier and they turn into ninjas.

We call Katy, Amazon Prime, after I told everyone about nearly not answering the door. I said, it’s the best delivery I’ve ever had.