lived in the same house on Maple Street for forty-three years.
It was a modest, pale-blue wooden home with a small porch that creaked under the weight of memory. The paint had begun to peel in places, and the shutters no longer closed properly, but Margaret refused to fix them. “The house breathes better this way,” she used to say.
Now, there was no one left to hear her say anything at all.
Every morning, she woke up at exactly 6:15 a.m., not because she needed to, but because her body refused to forget the rhythm of a life that no longer existed. She would sit at the edge of her bed for a full minute before standing, steadying herself against the nightstand. Her knees had grown stiff over the years, and her balance was not what it used to be.
Still, she never complained. There was no one to complain to.
The silence in the house was the loudest thing she had ever known.
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