Twenty-five years later.Time is strange.It doesn’t ask permission before it reshapes you.One day you’re a girl crying on the floor over someone who couldn’t choose you.And the next—You’re standing in a quiet kitchen, gray beginning to touch your hair, watching your daughter pack for college.Bella leaned against the doorway as her now-grown daughter folded clothes into a suitcase.“Mom,” she sighed dramatically, “stop looking at me like I’m moving to another planet.”Bella smiled.“I’m not. I’m just memorizing this version of you.”Her daughter rolled her eyes but smiled back.“You’re being emotional.”“Occupational hazard of motherhood.”But it wasn’t just motherhood.It was memory.It was knowing how fast life moves.It was understanding that some chapters end before you realize they’re closing.Later that night, after the house fell quiet, Bella sat on the porch.Daniel joined her, carrying two mugs of tea.They didn’t talk much anymore.Not because there was nothing to say.B
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