When the phone rings, I hesitate before answering.
It’s my sister, Jessica’s mother, with the usual check-in but also a reminder of the upcoming visit.
“Are you ready for this?” she asks, her voice tinged with both hope and exhaustion.
“I think so,” I reply, though I’m not sure what being ready really means.
We talk briefly, skirting around the deeper issues that lay between us.
The conversation is filled with pauses, each one a reminder of the things left unsaid.
After the call, I sit in the quiet, the weight of the past pressing down.
It’s strange how some moments can stretch on endlessly, while others pass in the blink of an eye.
Time feels both slow and fast, a contradiction I can’t quite reconcile.
Maybe that’s the nature of living with unresolved stories, the way they persist and evolve.
