Unlatched Windows
Julia heard her own voice for the first time in months. It came out rough, strained, as if it had fought its way through layers of dust settled on her vocal cords and the weight of time:
*”Good morning.”*
It wasn’t a greeting—just a test. Her voice seemed unsure if it even had the right to speak. It sounded like it belonged to another life. A life where bathroom doors slammed in the mornings, kettles hissed on the stove, and little bare feet ran to show her how the peas had sprouted on damp cotton wool in an old jam jar.
Julia opened her eyes to deafening silence. The ceiling—dull, grayish, like faded sky—hung flat above her, lifeless. The flat was warm, but a light draft brushed the edge of the curtain. She’d left the window open again. Or maybe not forgotten—left it that way on purpose. Just in case a child’s laughter carried through. Or footsteps. Or breath.
She lay still on her back, as if hoping that if she stared upward long enough, the cracks in the plaster might reveal a path. A map to leave this endless gray room—and, more importantly, to leave herself.
The kitchen hadn’t changed. A mug of dried-up coffee on the windowsill, waiting for yesterday to start. A browned apple on the cutting board, abandoned like unfinished conversations. And the photo on the fridge: a six-year-old boy, grinning in an astronaut costume, bright and unguarded, as if he were about to ask, *”Mum, will I really fly?”*
She hadn’t touched the picture in over a year. Her hand would lift—then freeze midair, terrified of smudging the memory. The magnet holding it up was from a children’s eye clinic—funny, really. They’d just gone in for a check-up. He’d said the letters *ran away* when he read. But in the end, there was no prescription. No glasses. Just an ending no one prepares for. One with no way back.
By the front door—tiny trainers with blue Velcro straps. Dusty. Silent. As if the slightest touch might collapse everything. They were just shoes, really. Plastic, fabric, soles. But they held an entire universe in twenty centimeters.
She used to love mornings. Coffee brewing, music playing. Now it was just green tea—bitter, no sugar, no lemon. The taste clung to her throat like unspoken words. Outside, the city stirred: buses hissing, cigarette smoke, a dog barking, neighbors shouting. Life went on, unaware that someone nearby had stopped long ago.
Julia had taught literature at Leeds College. Loved Chekhov—for his quiet ache, for the unspoken pain between lines, for pauses you could hide in. After *it* happened, she left. First on sick leave. Then nowhere. Never went back. Couldn’t. Then didn’t even want to. Books became unbearable—words clawed at her ribs from the inside.
In spring, a friend dragged her to a support group. The smell of cheap vending-machine coffee, gray walls worn thin by strangers’ grief. A woman in a red jumper who’d lost her husband. A college boy who clutched his backpack all evening, silent. No one screamed. But the air vibrated with pain, like a plucked string.
She felt out of place. As if her loss was too private. Too invisible. No grave, no date, no goodbye. Like she wasn’t allowed to grieve aloud. So she left. Quietly. Never returned.
Sometimes she wrote letters. Never sent them. Just saved them. A folder on her laptop called *”Drafts.”* Letters to him.
*”You’d be starting Year Two now. You’d probably hate porridge. We’d argue in the mornings. Or maybe you’d be easy. You’d know how my hair smells. I’d braid it if you were a girl. But you were my boy. My astronaut. My ‘Mum, look!’ My hope.”*
Sometimes she didn’t finish. Just put a full stop. No closure. No explanation.
Today, her voice didn’t come from emptiness—but from somewhere deeper. Not begging, not aching. Just *there.* And somehow, that was enough.
For the first time in ages, Julia wanted to go outside. Not for a reason. Just to step onto pavement that hadn’t felt her footprints in too long.
She pulled out her coat. Dusty from disuse. Tugged on boots. Paused. Listened to the old floorboards sigh under her soles. Inside—an odd tremor. Not fear. Not pain. Something else. Like something returning.
She walked to the fridge. Took the photo. Carefully peeled off the magnet. Ran a thumb over her son’s face, his wide, alive smile.
*”Come on, astronaut. I need to learn how to live again,”* she whispered.
Opened the door. Stepped out. Then took another step.
And for the first time in all these years—she latched the window.
Not from pain. Not from fear. Just because she finally understood: *now, she could.* And maybe—*she had to.*
