Vivienne's POV
Charles left quietly.
He pushed his chair back and stood and looked at my mother and said thank you for this in a tone that meant exactly what it said and nothing extra. She looked at him and gave him a single nod. He looked at me briefly, just a moment, and then he picked up his jacket from the back of the chair and walked out of the kitchen.
The front door opened and closed.
And then it was just the two of us.
....
We didn't speak immediately.
That was fine. My mother and I had always been good at the kind of silence that didn't need to be filled. We had lived together long enough in rooms where the most important things were happening underneath the conversation rather than in it that we had both developed an ease with quiet that most people didn't have.
The kitch
