* Julliane *
"Jullie, are you going to have lunch with Penny in the dining room?"
Nana Carmen's voice broke through the dense fog of my thoughts, pulling me back into the present. I blinked at the clock on my nightstand, 12:07 PM. How had the morning slipped past without me noticing? I hadn't eaten anything since yesterday evening, my stomach a tight knot of forgotten hunger.
"Yes, that sounds good, Nana," I replied, slipping out of bed and reaching for my robe.
As we made our way downstairs, the house felt quieter than usual, the kind of silence that settled in thick layers, pressing against the old, polished walls and muffling every creak of the wooden staircase. I wondered where my mother had gone, her laughter with the therapist still echoing faintly in my mind.
The dining room wa
