Reflections of Absence

The city lights blurred past the window as the car moved through quiet streets. Alina sat still, her reflection faint against the glass. Her mother had been absent for years, physically and emotionally, yet her memory remained vivid. The loss was never about forgetting, only about absence. One gone too soon, the other having walked away.

Their home had been modest but rich in thought. The mother she remembered lived in quiet moments, distant, restrained, more presence than voice. Her father became her anchor. A renowned historian and professor, he filled the house with books, maps, and steady purpose. The soft scratch of pencil on paper echoed Catherine’s distant sketches, while Jonathan’s calm voice guided her through homework, through first losses, through a childhood that ended too soon. He had filled the spaces her mother left behind.

And then, one day, even he was gone. A door closed, not slammed, just shut. Loss had carved her, shaped her, made her self-reliant, but left spaces