Chapter 11 Chapter Eleven

• Rain had been falling since before dawn, a soft uneven tapping against the glass that never quite settled into a steady rhythm.
• Sylvia lay still and listened to it for a long time. The building remained quiet in that thin early hour. Somewhere above, a pipe knocked once and went silent. Her body carried a low specific ache; hips, the back of one shoulder, a tenderness that surfaced whenever she shifted. None of it hurt. That almost made it worse.
• She rose eventually and moved through the small routines of morning without turning on more lights than necessary. The shower stayed lukewarm. She let the water run over her shoulders and tried not to let the storage room return in full. It came anyway: the second slower joining, the open eyes, the exact moment control had slipped for both of them. She shut the water off before the memory could root too deeply.