The Day She Returned
Last Thursday morning began like any other. The girls were working on a pair of new gowns they had been designing, and I was in the kitchen pouring coffee when the doorbell rang.
I wasn’t expecting anyone.
When I opened the door, the past stepped back into my life.
Lauren stood there.
For a moment I genuinely wondered if I was imagining things. The woman standing in front of me looked polished and expensive, like someone who had spent years carefully crafting an image. Her clothes alone probably cost more than our monthly rent, and her perfectly styled hair framed a face that carried the same sharp confidence I remembered.
She looked at me over a pair of sunglasses.
“Mark,” she said coolly.
Before I could respond, she stepped past me and walked into the apartment as if eighteen years had never happened.
Her eyes moved slowly around the room, lingering on the sewing table covered with fabric and sketches.
Then she wrinkled her nose.
“You’re still living like this?” she said loudly. “Still stuck in the same little hole?”
Emma and Clara had already stopped sewing.
“Dad,” Clara asked quietly, “who is that?”
I took a breath that felt heavier than it should have.
“It’s… your mother.”
The room fell silent.
continue to the next page.”
