I walked into the house the way a soldier walks back from war — not bruised, not bleeding, but irrevocably changed.

The lights were dim. The paid workers had gone for the night, and only the soft glow spilling from the living room greeted me. For a moment, I just stood there, listening to the quiet hum of the house that had once felt like a sanctuary.

Then she appeared — Mom.

She looked exactly the same. Her favorite cream sweater, her hair loose around her shoulders, a book open in her ...