The days following Clara’s enforced time off slipped by slower than she would have liked. The clock seemed louder, the afternoons longer, the evenings stretched taut with silence.
For once, there were no medical bills stacked crookedly on the kitchen table, no bright red Past Due notices glaring at her like accusations. Nicholas had taken care of those. The knowledge should have been a blessing, but instead it pressed down on her ribs, filling her with something tangled and raw—relief on one side, guilt on the other.
Every time she passed the cleared surface of the table, her eyes twitched toward it instinctively, expecting to see envelopes and demands waiting. But there was only empty wood, polished smooth by absence. And that absence unsettled her more than she cared to admit.
Without
