The air here carries a Crayola-snap of cold, smelling of freshly baked sponge and the heavy, damp silence of secrets long-buried.
“This is a tragedy people bring flowers to. Sorrowful looks of pity across the supermarket queue. Whispers in the playground. I feel a phantom pity, a cold weight in my chest that feels almost like a heart. Almost. I want to mourn her. I want to be the kind of woman who cries at the first lock of hair. But it would be too selfish. Lily was sick. She had a mother who fought for her every breath. But I wasn’t fighting for her breath. No, I was fighting for my own silence.”
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