Garrett heard his own voice, rough from disuse, scrape out of him like a stone dragged across old grief.
“You lost,” he said.
The woman’s throat moved as if she tried to swallow words. None came. She shook her head slowly, then nodded, a contradiction that somehow made perfect sense. Everything and nothing. Yes and no. Gone and not gone.
Garrett stepped aside.
He didn’t offer a speech. He didn’t ask permission.