Eventually, the three of us managed to get some sleep. With my two girlfriends in close proximity, even I managed to get in a good night’s rest. Although it was also me who was the first one to wake up. Both Ria and Em were still fast asleep so I decided to silently put some clothes on and sneak out of the room so I didn’t accidentally wake them up. Outside of the room, I looked at my phone to check the time. “6 in the morning, huh… Oh well.” I shrugged. That’s when I heard some movement up ahead.

“Hello?” It was Em’s mom, she poked her head around the corner into the hallway. “Oh, it’s you, Aurora. Aren’t you up a little early.”

“I’m not tired anymore.” I smiled.

“An early bird.” She smiled back.

“How about you?” I asked back.

“I don’t like sleeping for too long. It always feels like a bit of a waste to spend most of the day in my bed. I want to use each day as well as I can.”

“I understand that.” Though, that time pressure had truly gone and sailed off for us.

She nodded. “I was just about to head downstairs.”

“Do you need help going down the stairs?” I walked up to her and offered my arm.

“If you are offering.” She giggled softly. “And I wouldn’t mind the company, either. But you do need to watch out.”

“Watch out for what?” I tilted my head a little.

“That my Emma doesn’t start to think you are flirting with me.”

I laughed. “I would never. But I do have to say, you have one hell of a lucky partner.”

“You are quite the charmer.” She giggled once more.

I then slowly helped Ilse down the staircase. From the windows that ended up in the staircase’s hall, you could see it was still very dark outside.

“Did you girls behave after I went to bed yesterday evening?” She asked in a cheeky tone.

“Of course we did.” I replied confidently, we’d just reached the bottom of the stairs. “We went out for a walk in the snow. It was pretty fun.”

“An evening walk through the snowy garden. How romantic.” It seemed like she was prodding a little but sadly I had to disappoint her.

“It would be if it didn’t end up in a huge snowball fight.” We then started to move towards the living room.

“Oh my.” She put her free hand on her chest in some kind of fake surprise. “So that’s why the bathroom was doing overtime yesterday?”

“Ah, you heard that? We didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“It’s alright.” She put me at ease. “I always like to read a couple of chapters in my book before I fall asleep.”

“Ah, you are also a fervent reader?”

“Very much so.” She nodded.

“So that’s where Karin has got it from.” We’d finally reached the sofas. I guided Em’s mom to the one closest to one of the heaters

“Karin has always enjoyed both listening to and reading stories from when she was young. Emma liked them too but it was clear that she was more inclined to other interests.” Ilse sat down and looked at me.

“It’s a good thing different people have different interests, otherwise the world would be a very boring place.”

Em’s mom nodded and smiled. “That’s true.”

I looked over to the kitchen to get us something to drink, but before I could ask what Ilse would like to have, she started talking again.

“Oh, and did you find your thermos flask, by the way?” She asked.

“Ah, yeah, we did.” I chuckled and rubbed the back of my head.

“Sorry, I didn’t tell you I moved it to the fridge. I forgot to mention it yesterday evening.”

“It’s no problem at all.” I waved her apology away with my hand. “I should thank you instead for being so considerate and putting it in the fridge in the first place.”

“I hope you didn’t have to look for it for too long.”

“Nah, Em had a pretty good idea for where it went.” I smiled.

“Good.” She smiled again.

“So, now that I’m standing up anyway, would you like something to drink?”

“Hmmm.” Em’s mom put her index finger against her cheek. “Maybe just some milk if you’d be so kind.”

“As long as I don’t have to drink it, that’ll be coming right up.”

“Still not a big fan of milk?”

“Not. At. All.”

Em’s mom giggled, I took that as my opportunity to walk off to the kitchen to get her some of that rather disgusting liquid. Although I do have to say… it’s rather suspicious that she didn’t ask anything about the flask's contents. But maybe I’m just overthinking it, like Em did yesterday.

When I came back with a glass of milk for Em’s mom and a glass of water for myself, Ilse asked me to turn on the radio, albeit on a rather low volume so we didn’t disturb anyone upstairs. That was easier said than done though as the radio Ilse wanted me to turn on was one of those old expensive looking radios that had more turning knobs and buttons than a calculator. But in the end, together with some good instructions from Ilse, I did manage to turn it on, after which we listened to this early morning radio show. It was basically just the two radio hosts talking about a theater play that they’d seen recently. This must be the kind of radio show Claire likes to listen to as well.

“I take it you don’t really listen to radio posts like this one?” Em’s mom chuckled.

“Indeed. I do not.” I replied with a chuckle of my own. “I actually don’t listen to radio that much in general… I’m pretty sure I don’t even have a radio.”

“So you don’t listen to music?”

“Well, there’s still Observivy. Or MyCube. And if I really need to, I can put on the radio on the television.”

“Oh? That’s a thing?”

“Didn’t you know?”

“I actually don’t watch the television that much in general…” Ilse smirked just ever so slightly. -Using my own words against me, hey?-

“I can show you if you want to.” I pointed to the apparently rather unused household television.

“Hmm, let me see if I can put it somewhere in my extremely busy early morning schedule.” She giggled. And now I also knew where Em’s sas came from. “But no, go ahead.”

I rolled my eyes with a smile and got to work on the television after turning the chonky radio back off again. They had the same tv provider I had so it took me no time to figure out what the numbers were for the radio channels. I even showed her the tv radio channels that specifically only played a certain genre of music. Like the uninspiringly named JazzTVRadio.

Em’s mom looked on in awe to how many different radio channels she had.

We were still exploring the different channel, right now we had arrived at the punk rock channel, when Em walked into the room, rubbing her eyes.

“Mom… Auro…? How long have you two been awake?”

I looked at the clock that was displayed on the PunkRockTVRadio-channel. “Uh, about an hour and a half.”

“Oh…” She yawned.

“Hey, if you are tired you can crawl into bed again, your mom and I are amusing ourselves.”

Ilse nodded. “Yes dear, it's the weekend and you’ve been studying hard lately. It’s good to have some rest.”

“No, I’m fine, Mom.” Em shook her head. “I’m just going to get something hot to drink for myself. Do you want something too?”

“We’re good, we still have our drinks.” Her mom smiled at her as Em returned her reply with a nod.

“I do wonder when Ria is going to get up, she is quite the heavy sleeper.” I softly laughed.

“She’s free to sleep as long as she wants.” Ilse turned back to me with that self same smile.

“And I’m sure she’s going to use every single bit of that privilege.”

When Em returned, she’d made herself some tea with honey, and then the three of us listened to the radio together. We’d settled on some classical rock. I was somewhat surprised that Em’s mom didn’t mind that choice at all.

“I’m a woman whose home to many different cultures.” Ilse giggled.

“Mom used to be a real ‘rock chick’ back in the day.” Em said.

“No way.” I looked at Ilse with open eyes. You’d really not say with how she looked right now.

“I think I still have some pictures of those days stowed away somewhere.” She replied. “Those were some wild days but I do think back fondly on that time.”

“Is there a possibility we could see those pictures?” I asked.

“Maybe some other time. They are somewhere in the attic in some old box…” It was as if she just had an epiphany. “Tell you what, if you come and help, together with Corelia, for spring-cleaning. Then I think we could definitely arrange that.”

“We’d need to discuss that with the two of us, but I’m sure she would agree to that.” I smiled.

-Who wouldn’t want to see that. It’s so interesting to look back on how people used to be, especially when that image really doesn’t coincide with their current one anymore. As long as they agree on seeing those images, that is.-