174. The Mother She Became

Nova

I don’t decide to tell him. It happens the way most truths do, when silence grows wide enough to hold them.

We’re still sitting across from each other, cups long emptied, the café shifting around us in small, ordinary ways. Chairs scrape. Someone laughs too loudly. A barista calls out a name. And yet, it feels like Roman and I are inside a pocket of stillness the world forgot to disturb.

A waiter comes with the kettle and changes our cups and refills new ...