Years ago
The old floorboards creaked beneath Katherine's feet as she stepped carefully through the narrow hallway of her mother's house, balancing a half-filled box of old trinkets and photo albums against her hip. Dust floated lazily in the afternoon sunlight that slanted through the faded curtains, illuminating motes of the past that lingered in the air.
It had only been five days since her mother passed. The silence in the house was heavier than ever, not because no one was speaking, but because no one was left to speak. Her father had died when she was still in junior high, and now with her mother gone too, the weight of being truly alone was settling on her shoulders like a thick winter coat she couldn't shrug off.
