The heavy oak doors of the townhouse swung shut with a finality that echoed through the quiet, tree-lined street. Elena stood on the sidewalk for a moment, the handle of a battered suitcase digging into her palm. For thirty years, that house had been her universe, a polished cage of mahogany and silk where her presence had been reduced to the decorative and the functional.
She was leaving with almost nothing—a few changes of clothes, a folder of medical records thick with the geography of her own pain, and a stack of unframed photographs. These images were the only proof…
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