YOUR MOTHER-IN-LAW HANDED YOU A BRUTAL LIST AND ORDERED, “COOK FOR FIFTY PEOPLE BEFORE 3 A.M.”

You do not read either one.

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Pause

00:00
00:12
01:31
Mute

Because for the first time in five years, your silence belongs to you.

At the airport, the fluorescent lights make everything look too honest.

Families huddle around luggage carts. Business travelers walk with that tight, efficient impatience of people who wear deadlines like a second watch. A toddler cries beside a bakery kiosk, and somewhere near security, a woman laughs loudly enough to sound free. You move through the line with your shoulders straight and your breath measured, as if the body already knows what the mind is still struggling to believe.