The Door I Swore I'd Never Open

Some places don’t let you leave, even when you run.

Laura looked at her email in disbelief.

How did they find her again? No contact means no contact. Not just because Mum got sick, they have to tell me. Why don’t they realise that I don’t care? Everything that family put me through, I don’t want to go back for any reason.

I’m not going back, she said to herself, putting her foot down in her head.

Two days later, another e-mail arrived, Mum’s not got long left. Good. Dad wants me to go and make peace with her before she goes, Laura snorted and let out a tight laugh, she doesn’t have enough time left on this planet to ‘put things right.’

Another day passed, and her sister Enya showed up at her door.

“Well? Can I come in?” Enya said shortly.

“I suppose so. How did you find me?”

“I had to hire a private detective, just because you can’t reply to a bloody e-mail.”

Oh, here we go. It’s still all my fault. This is one reason I cut all those ties; I rolled my eyes and put the kettle on.

“Coffee?”

“As long as it’s not that awful decaf stuff from Aldi."

Laura took a deep breath and brought out her small stash of Carte Noir L’or coffee.

“So, what do you want?” knowing full well what this was about, but she wanted to hear their reasoning this time.

“You know Mum is dying, right?”

“Yes, I’m aware.”

“And what? You don’t care? She birthed you, raised you, fed you —”

Laura let out a bark of laughter. Her mouth twisted, and sarcasm dripped from her words as she said, “Yeah, she gave me the damn world.”

“Oh, don’t say it like that; she did the best she could with what she had.”

“Yeah, she had a real nice leather belt.” Laura bit back at her sister.

Enya at least had enough shame to look down at that point, but not for long. “Look, I know childhood wasn’t the easiest time, but Dad needs our help”

Dad? The man who went missing for 3 years, who strolled back in and decided that his eldest daughter was now a woman and could do ‘womanly things’ as he put it. Laura’s face was turning red and hot with shame and fury at the things that man did to them in the name of ‘lessons for later in life.’ Disgust showed on her face, and Enya took over making the coffee.

“He changed when you left; everything was different. He is a different person now.”

“Well, good for you, I guess. At least one of us is normal.”

The kettle clicked off with a sharp, domestic finality, as though it had just made up its mind about something Laura still hadn’t. Steam curled up in lazy spirals, softening the air between the sisters, but doing nothing to soften the tension.

Enya poured the coffee, slow and careful, like she was handling something fragile rather than just boiling water. Laura watched her from the doorway, arms folded, leaning against the frame as though she might bolt if the conversation shifted one inch further into dangerous territory.

“You don’t have to stay long,” Enya said eventually, sliding a mug across the counter. “You could just… go, say goodbye, and leave again. No speeches. No forgiveness. Just closure.”

Laura snorted.

“Closure is a Hallmark card word. It doesn’t exist in real families.”

Enya exhaled, rubbing her temples. “You know what I mean.”

Laura picked up her mug but didn’t drink. The smell of the coffee hit her like a memory she didn’t want — rich, dark, and uncomfortably familiar. It reminded her of Sunday mornings that always started peaceful and ended in shouting.

Silence stretched between them, thick enough to touch.

Finally, Laura said, “Why now? You’ve had years to care about me. Years to come knocking. Why show up at my door like this?”

Enya stared into her cup. “Because Mum asked for you.”

Laura’s stomach tightened.

“She asked for me,” she repeated flatly. “Funny. She didn’t ask for me when I was ten and crying in my room with a split lip.”

Enya winced. “Laura—”

“No,” Laura’s voice was sharper now. “Don’t do that soft-voice thing. Don’t pretend this is about reconciliation. You’re here because it’s easier for you if I come. Not because anyone actually wants me there.”

Enya looked up then, eyes glassy but stubborn. “That’s not fair.”

“Fair?” Laura laughed, bitter and short. “Fair left our house a long time ago.”

The clock ticked loudly on the wall. Laura suddenly became aware of how small her flat was — how safe. Clean counters, mismatched mugs, plants that weren’t dying. A life carefully built far away from everything that broke her.

She had escaped. Really escaped.

And now her past was sitting at her kitchen table.

Enya broke the silence again. “She’s in the old house.”

Laura’s chest tightened so sharply that she almost dropped her mug.

“Still?” she whispered.

“Where else would she be?” Enya shrugged helplessly. “Dad refused to move. Said it held too many memories to leave.”

Too many memories. For him, good ones, maybe.

For Laura, that house was a bruise with a roof.

She pictured it instantly: the peeling green front door, the cracked step she’d tripped on a hundred times as a child, the narrow hallway that always smelled faintly of bleach and boiled cabbage.

Her hands trembled. “I can’t go back there,” she said, more to herself than to Enya.

“You don’t have to go inside,” Enya said quickly. “You could stand outside. Or sit in the car. Or just… be nearby.”

Laura laughed again, but this time it sounded cracked.

“You really think standing on that street won’t rip me open?”

Enya didn’t answer.

The sisters sat there for a long time, drinking coffee that neither of them tasted. Eventually, Enya stood up.

“I’ll leave you to think,” she said quietly. “But I’m going back tomorrow morning. With or without you.”

Laura watched her go, listened to the click of the door, then leaned against the counter and let out a long breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.

That night, sleep didn’t come.

She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, memories drifting up like ghosts she’d spent years burying. The sound of shouting through thin walls. The slam of doors. The leather belt coiled on the back of a chair like a snake waiting to strike.

At 3:17 a.m., she gave up trying to sleep.

She sat at her kitchen table in the dark, phone in her hand, thumb hovering over Enya’s number. She didn’t want to go. Every part of her rebelled against it.

But another part, small, stubborn, aching, kept whispering: what if this is the last chance?

At 5:02 a.m., she texted:

I’ll come.

No emojis. No explanation.

Just a single terrible decision.

The drive back felt like a slow undoing.

Every mile marker pulled her further from the life she’d built and closer to the life she’d fled. Familiar roads unfolded like a bad dream she couldn’t wake from.

Enya drove, quiet and careful, glancing at Laura every so often like she was made of glass.

They didn’t talk much.

What was there to say?

As they neared the town, Laura felt her chest tighten again. Shops she hadn’t seen in years slid past the window like the bakery that used to give her free pastries, the park where she’d learned to ride a bike, the corner where she’d first realised she wasn’t safe in her own home.

Her hands curled into fists in her lap.

Then, there it was.

The house.

Smaller than she remembered. More worn. The green paint on the door chipped and faded; the front garden was overgrown with weeds that looked like they’d given up on trying to be pretty.

Laura’s breath hitched.

Enya slowed the car to a stop at the curb.

Silence.

Laura stared at the building that had shaped her and shattered her in equal measure.

Her heart hammered so hard she felt it in her throat.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered.

“You don’t have to,” Enya said softly. “We can sit here.”

So they did; the minutes passed like hours.

Eventually, Laura opened the car door. The air outside smelled like damp earth and old brick, exactly as she remembered.

Her feet touched the pavement, and for a moment she felt twelve years old again, small, scared, braced for impact.

She didn’t move.

Enya came around to stand beside her. “You’re not alone this time,” she said quietly.

Laura swallowed hard.

Step by step, she walked up the path she had sworn she would never walk again.

The cracked step was still there.

Of course it was.

She paused before the door, heart pounding, hand hovering in midair.

Then she knocked.

The sound echoed through her bones.

The door opened, and there he was.

Her father. Older. Thinner. Hollowed out in a way that looked less like wisdom and more like exhaustion. For a second, they just stared at each other. Then his eyes filled with tears.

“Laura,” he breathed.

She felt nothing like relief, only a sick, swirling mix of anger, grief, and something too complicated to name.

Enya slipped past them into the house, leaving Laura standing frozen in the doorway with the man she had spent years trying to forget.

“Are you going to come in?” he asked softly.

Laura hesitated.

Then, against her better judgment, she stepped inside.

The hallway smelled the same, bleach and boiled cabbage.

Her stomach twisted.

The house was quieter than she remembered, but the silence felt heavy, weighted with everything unsaid.

He led her into the living room, where her mother lay propped up in a hospital bed that looked painfully out of place among the old furniture.

Laura stopped dead.

Her mother looked tiny.

Shrunk down to something fragile, wrapped in blankets, skin pale and thin like paper. The woman who had once loomed large and frightening now looked heartbreakingly small.

For a moment, Laura felt something she didn’t expect; not anger, no hatred, but grief.

Raw, unpolished, and confusing.

Her mother’s eyes fluttered open.

“Laura?” she whispered.

Laura swallowed.

“I’m here.”

Her mother’s face softened in a way Laura had almost never seen before.

“I knew you’d come,” she murmured.

Laura felt a surge of bitterness. “Did you?”

Her mother’s eyes shimmered. “I’m sorry.”

The word hung in the air between them, fragile and immense.

Laura stared at her, torn between wanting to scream and wanting to collapse.

“Sorry doesn’t fix everything,” Laura said finally.

“No,” her mother agreed quietly. “It doesn’t.”

Silence settled again, thick but different this time, less sharp, more aching.

Laura pulled up a chair and sat beside the bed.

For the first time in years, she didn’t run.

She didn’t forgive or forget, but she stayed, and in that action, something shifted, not healed, not resolved, but changed.

Outside, the house she had sworn she’d never return to, stood exactly where it always had.

Inside, Laura sat with her past, her pain, and her mother’s fragile breath, realising that some returns are less about going back and more about facing what you’ve been carrying all along.