He gave those four nights to old friends, and his mother sat on the porch

He went back to his hometown for the holiday. During the day he stayed in, nowhere to be. But around seven every evening he would change his shirt, wheel the bike out to the yard, and not come home until late.

Nothing wrong with that. You only see the old crowd once a year, and if nobody makes the plan, nobody meets. It is only that the four evenings of that break all went the same way.

Every night his mother asked what time he would be home. He heard it as a curfew question, answered without thinking, and started the engine. Then one night he came back for his wallet and saw the table: a pot of tea still steaming, two cups set upside down beside it. She had made it before she asked. The question had never been a question.

Eleven at night, still at the shop. There was a message from his mother on his phone — a short one, saying come home, she had just made chè. He had not replied. Then he looked around the table: four phones, all face down. Every one of them had the same message waiting, from a different house.

The last night he got back near midnight. The gate light was on. The tea on the table had gone cold, and one of the two cups was still full. He stood there a while before it landed: four nights, and that light had been on every one of them. She had not forgotten to switch it off. She had also never mentioned it.

She never kept me home with words. She kept me with a porch light.

Old friends have to be scheduled. A mother is simply always there — and maybe that is exactly why she is the one who keeps getting pushed to last. The last time you went home, was there a single night you stayed?