The house was quiet now.
Maren had spent eighteen years waking to noise — the thump of small feet, the clatter of cereal bowls, the daily argument about whose turn it was to feed the dog. Now that both children were at university, the mornings belonged entirely to her, and she wasn't sure she wanted them.
She began each day with the same ablution she'd practiced since childhood: cold water on the face, three splashes, eyes open. Her mother had taught her this — a way of greeting the day that was half hygiene, half ceremony. The shock of cold water was supposed to wash away whatever the night had deposited.
The kitchen, once a battlefield of competing breakfast demands, now radiated a serenity that felt almost architectural. Sunlight moved across the counter in slow diagonals. The coffee maker — the expensive one she'd bought herself as an empty-nest consolation — hummed its quiet note.
She sat at the table with her cup and looked at the chair where Thomas used to sit, drawing elaborate monsters on his napkin while his eggs went cold. The scratch marks on the table's surface accentuated the history of the room — every gouge and ring a small record of a meal that mattered to no one but her.
A wistful feeling settled in her chest. Not sadness, exactly. Something more tender than that. The recognition that the best parts of her life had happened in this room, at this table, and she hadn't known it at the time.
The dog padded in and rested its chin on her knee.
"Just us," Maren said.
The dog wagged its tail once, which she took as agreement.