Chapter 73 The Weight Of Quiet Things

• The morning after Lucy arrived, the town seemed to stretch awake more slowly, as though the snow-muted streets had given everyone permission to linger a little longer in their beds. Lila was the first at the bakery, unlocking the door and stepping into the soft hush of flour and memory.
• She didn’t turn on the lights right away. Instead, she stood in the stillness, letting the warmth from the ovens seep into her bones as the first glow of morning filtered through the frosted windows. The quiet held a strange sort of comfort—the kind that came after stormy seas, not because everything was fixed, but because you’d survived the worst of it.
• She thought of Lucy’s face last night, how unsure she’d looked when she’d stepped through the door, a bag clutched in one hand, hope in the other. And she thought of Emma—how she’d reached out without flinching. How none of them had asked for explanations, just made room.