The rain had not stopped in three days.
Outside the cracked window of a nursing home room, the sky hung low and heavy, pressing the world into silence.
Lina lay alone in a creaky wooden bed, a faded blanket draped over her lower body. The hands resting on her sides were thin, veins rising like dry roots beneath her wrinkled skin. On the small table lay a framed covered photo.
She hadn't had the strength to turn it for months. Not that it mattered anymore. Their family was shattered; the family she sacrificed herself to keep together was gone.
Lina smiled faintly, the corners of her lips trembling. It wasn't bitterness she felt, at least not anymore. What was left in it stead was only a hollow kind of peace that came from finally realizing how foolish she'd been.
