It sounded too sharp for a kitchen meant to hold comfort.
Margaret Hayes had lived long enough to recognize moments before fully understanding them. At seventy-one, she no longer trusted first impressions, but she trusted instincts—the way the air tightened, the way voices thinned, the way her chest constricted without warning. That evening, standing in her son’s dining room with a folded napkin on her lap and a polite smile honed over decades, something inside her already began to withdraw.
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