Still Water

A man retires, loses his wife, and slowly learns that the quiet was never the problem

The quiet showed up the day after the retirement party and never left.

Not peaceful quiet. Not the kind you drive four hours to find at some lake house. This was different. This was the quiet of a house that used to have a dog, used to have kids tracking mud through the kitchen, used to have Mary calling him from two rooms away about nothing important and everything essential. This quiet had weight. It settled into the furniture and stayed.

Frank stood at the kitchen counter at 6:12 a.m. because his body still thought he had somewhere to be. Thirty-eight years of early alarms don’t negotiate. They just keep firing.

He poured the coffee.