Night Flower
Lydia came that afternoon with fresh linens and no introduction beyond her own name, offered flatly as she stripped the bed without preamble or ceremony: "Lydia."
She was older, compact, built with the economy of movement that accumulated over decades of work done well and without announcement. Eastern European accent, thick and unhurried, the kind of accent that had stopped apologizing for itself a long time ago. She moved through the room the way people moved through spaces they had been moving through for years, without consulting it, without adjusting to it, simply occupying it with the comfortable authority of familiarity.
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