Unlatched Windows
Emily hadn’t heard her own voice in months. When it came, it was hoarse and muffled, as if pushing through layers of dust settled on her vocal cords and the weight of passing time:
—Good morning.
It wasn’t a greeting. It was a test. The voice seemed unsure if it still had the right to exist. It sounded like it belonged to another life—one where bathroom doors slammed in the morning, kettles hissed in the kitchen, and tiny bare feet rushed to show her how the cress seeds on damp cotton wool had sprouted in an old jam jar.
She opened her eyes to absolute silence. The ceiling—dull and greyish, like faded sky—hung motionless above her, lifeless. The flat was warm, but a faint draft nudged the curtain’s edge. She’d left the window open again. Or maybe not forgotten, but left it that way on purpose. Just in case. In case a child’s laughter drifted in. Or footsteps. Or breath.
She lay on her back, perfectly still, as if staring long enough might reveal a path in the cracks of the plaster—a way out of this endless grey room, and, more importantly, out of herself.
The kitchen remained untouched. A mug with dried coffee grounds on the sill, like it was waiting for yesterday to begin. A browning apple on the chopping board, abandoned like unfinished conversations. And a photo on the fridge: a six-year-old boy in an astronaut costume, grinning as if about to ask, *Mum, will I really fly?*
She hadn’t touched the picture in over a year. Her hand would hover, afraid to smudge the memory. It was held by a magnet from a children’s optician—funny, when she thought about it. They’d gone in for a check-up, just because he complained about letters running away. But in the end… no prescription, no glasses. Just something no one was ready for. Something with no way back.
By the door, tiny trainers with blue Velcro straps sat gathering dust. Silent. Unmoving witnesses to time. Every day, she walked past them with a flinch, as if touching them would make everything collapse. Just a pair of children’s shoes—plastic, fabric, rubber. And yet, a whole universe compressed into twenty centimetres.
She used to love mornings. Coffee, music. Now—boiling water and bitter green tea, no sugar, no lemon. The taste clung to her throat like unspoken words. Outside, the city stirred: double-deckers rumbling, cigarette smoke, the bark of a terrier, neighbours bickering. Life went on, unaware that somewhere nearby, someone had long since stopped.
Emily had taught literature. At a college in Coventry. Loved Chekhov—the restraint, the ache between lines, the pauses where she could hide. After… she left. First on sick leave, then into nothing. Never went back. Couldn’t. Then didn’t want to. Reading became unbearable; words felt like ribs splintering from the inside.
In spring, a friend dragged her to a support group. The air smelled of instant coffee from a vending machine, the walls greyed by time and other people’s grief. She remembered a woman in a red jumper who’d lost her husband. A lanky lad of twenty who clutched his backpack all evening without speaking. No one shouted. But the room hummed with pain, tight as a guitar 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 slipped out. Didn’t return.
Sometimes she wrote letters. Never sent them. Just saved them in a folder on her laptop labelled *Drafts*. She wrote to him.
*You’d be in Year Two now. Bet you’d hate porridge. We’d row in the mornings—or maybe you’d be the quiet sort. You’d know the smell of my hair. I’d have braided it if you were a girl. But you’re a boy. My astronaut. My “Mum, look!”. My hope.*
Sometimes she didn’t finish. Just put a full stop. No follow-up. No explanation.
Today, her voice didn’t come from emptiness, but from somewhere deeper. It didn’t plead, cry, or ache. It simply was. And that, suddenly, was enough.
For the first time in ages, Emily wanted to step outside. Not for any reason. Just to feel the pavement under her feet. To let the ground remember she still existed.
She pulled out her coat—dusty from disuse. Tugged on her boots. Paused. Listened to the old floorboards sigh under her weight. Inside, a strange tremor. Not fear. Not pain. Something else. Like something turning back on.
She walked to the fridge. Took down the photo. Carefully peeled off the magnet. Ran a thumb over her son’s face, his wide, impossibly alive grin.
—Come on, my astronaut. I need to learn how to live again, she whispered.
Opened the door. Took a step. Then another.
And for the first time in a year—she latched the window.
Not from pain. Not from fear. Just because she knew, now, she could. And maybe… she should.
