I smiled despite myself.
Sarah used to make that same face when she was about to win an argument in our kitchen. She would lean one hip against the counter, arms crossed, pretending the whole world was a courtroom and she had the best evidence.
Sarah was gone now.
Her coffee mug still sat in our cabinet. Her church recipe cards were still in a box above the fridge. Her handwriting was still on the custody papers and will folder I kept locked in my desk, because when you lose someone young, you stop trusting ordinary mornings. Coffee
But Sophie was still here.
That made the world worth entering.
Even crowded cafés.
I chose the corner booth because it gave me a view of the front door, the counter, the hallway, the emergency exit, and the reflective window beside the espresso machine.
Old habits don’t leave just because you hang up the uniform.
I had spent fifteen years in places the government denied and the news never found. I had learned to watch hands, doors, shoes, exits, silence. Especially silence.
