The late afternoon sun spilled golden light across the familiar sidewalks of Brooklyn, casting long shadows of the past as Katherine walked slowly, her hands tucked deep into the pockets of her wool coat. The breeze was cool, brushing against her cheeks like a soft memory, and though the streets hummed with the usual city life: mothers pushing strollers, teenagers laughing loudly, someone blasting old-school R&B from a corner bodega. She felt wrapped in a quiet of her own.
It had been months since she moved out of the mansion, the place that once held all her dreams and then shattered them. Brooklyn wasn’t home anymore, not really, but it was the only place she could think to go when her world collapsed. Her childhood neighborhood had changed, but its soul was still there: the scent of fr
