Mine never did.Seven years have passed since Ryan walked out of this house at dawn with Jack and Caleb, fishing rods loaded in the truck, promising they’d be home before dinner. I still catch myself in the old habit — glancing up when I hear the front door, listening for the specific noise of three people coming back from somewhere and needing to be fed.
They never came back.It’s just me and Lily now. She’s thirteen, all long arms and careful eyes and the particular quiet that grows in a child who has spent years watching her mother wait for something that doesn’t come.
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