“Clara—”
“What did the doctors say?”
Her mother looked away.
Michael spoke quietly.
“Late-stage liver failure.”
The words hollowed out the room.
Clara felt all emotion vanish from her face at once, replaced by something numb and cold.
“How long?”
“A few months,” Michael admitted. “Maybe less.”
Silence spread again.
Outside, somewhere beyond the apartment walls, a car horn sounded faintly. Someone laughed in the street below. Ordinary life continued while Clara stood trapped inside the return of every nightmare she thought she had escaped.
Her mother folded trembling hands in her lap.
“I didn’t want her to know,” she murmured.
Clara looked at her sharply.
“Why?”
Elena gave a tired smile that barely existed.
“Because you finally looked happy.”
The words struck harder than they should have.
Clara hated that.
She hated that some wounded part of her still reacted to this woman’s softness. Still remembered childhood mornings before everything became ugly. Before alcohol. Before violence. Before fear settled permanently into every room they ever lived in.
“You don’t get to decide that for me,” Clara said.
“I know.”
“No,” Clara snapped suddenly, emotion breaking through at last. “You don’t know. You never knew.”
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