The silence outside the window was unbroken until, for the first time in years, her voice cut through it. It was faint, almost foreign, like an echo from a distant past:
“Good morning.”
The words trembled, as if afraid to disturb the fragile peace. They belonged to another life—one where mornings rang with children’s laughter, pots clattered on the stove, and small hands tugged at her sleeve to show her the peas stretching toward the sun in an old jam jar on the windowsill.
Katherine opened her eyes in the dim light. The ceiling above her was gray, like the faded sky over the coastal town outside. The room was warm, but a cold draft lazily rustled the edge of the curtain—she’d left the window open again. Or perhaps she’d done it on purpose, as if waiting for a familiar voice to drift in from the street. Or footsteps. Or the sound of the door. She lay there, staring at the ceiling, tracing the cracks as though they might hold the answer—how to escape this emptiness. Hunger pinched her stomach. She sat up, listening: the flat breathed solitude, stubborn and quiet, as if it had become part of her before she’d even noticed.
The kitchen was frozen in time. A mug with a coffee stain sat on the windowsill, a silent witness to yesterday. On the cutting board lay half a pear, browning and forgotten—Katherine couldn’t remember when she’d started slicing it, but she remembered the moment she’d stopped, as if something inside her had snapped. On the fridge was a photo: a boy of about six, in a bright pirate costume, grinning as if he might speak any second, his eyes sparkling like the sea in sunlight.
She hadn’t touched the photo in over two years. Her fingers would reach—then stop, as if afraid to smudge his smile. The picture clung to the fridge with a magnet from the local chemist—a bitter irony. They’d gone to check his eyesight back then; he said the letters in his books “jumped.” But it hadn’t ended in a doctor’s office. Not with a diagnosis. It ended on a road that didn’t exist on any map, one no app could navigate.
By the door, his trainers stood untouched. Small, with frayed laces. Dust had settled on them like a thin layer of time. To anyone else, they might’ve seemed like forgotten clutter—to her, they were relics. She stepped around them, as if even a glance might shatter the fragile balance of her morning. She’d meant to put them away—but couldn’t. Just a pair of shoes, a few inches of fabric and rubber. But they held an entire universe. As if someone might walk in and ask, “Mum, where are my trainers?” And she had to be ready—not for him, for herself.
Katherine made tea. No sugar, no honey—just boiling water and black leaves. It tasted bitter, as if it had soaked up her thoughts. Outside, the town carried on—indifferent, like the sea after a storm, chaos still churning beneath the surface but calm above. Inside her, everything had stalled, as if someone had yanked a plug from the socket, leaving only flickers of memory to keep the faintest light alive.
Once, she’d taught literature at the local school. She loved Dickens—not for the tragedy, but for the truth. For finding life in the darkest corners. For the pauses where everything left unsaid hid. After the loss, she’d left. Taken leave, then never returned. At first, she couldn’t. Then, she saw no point.
Last summer, a friend had dragged her to a support group. Katherine went three times. She remembered the cold hall with white walls, the smell of cheap vending machine coffee drowning out everything—even the faint scent of strangers’ cologne, even her own thoughts. She remembered the woman in the blue jumper who’d lost her daughter, speaking with a forced smile, as if apologising for her grief. And the young man in a hoodie, silent, fiddling with his backpack strap like he wanted to disappear into it. No one shouted, but the air trembled, thin as film over a flame. Katherine left—her pain felt “wrong.” As if she didn’t deserve a place among other sorrows. As if she’d lost something only she could see.
She wrote letters. Unsaved, tucked in a folder on her desktop labelled “Drafts.” Wrote to him. “You’d be in Year Three now… Probably hated porridge. We’d argue in the mornings. I’d still tie your laces if you hadn’t learned. You—my little pirate. My laughter in the grass. My ‘Mum, look, a ship!’ My…” Sometimes she stopped mid-sentence. Full stop. Silence. No edits, no endings. Just her breath against the screen and the emptiness behind her.
Today, her voice sounded different. No breaking, no sorrow—just tired, quiet resolve. As if something inside had cracked, and light seeped through.
Suddenly, Katherine wanted to go outside. Walk along the promenade. No purpose. Just to breathe. Her body, stiff with years of pain, remembered how to move. She threw on her coat, pulled on her boots, hesitated at the door. The floor creaked; the clock ticked like the house’s heartbeat. Then she walked to the fridge. Took down the photo. Removed the magnet. Ran her finger over the image, as if brushing his cheek.
“Come on, my pirate. Time to live,” she said. Her voice didn’t waver. There was strength in it—or hope, long forgotten.
She stepped out, closing the door softly behind her. And for the first time in years, she latched the window shut. Not out of fear. Just because she knew—now, she could.
