Not out of loyalty to her father, but because the absence of her mother left a hollow she didn’t know how else to fill. In those years, her father grew more brittle. His once brisk stride slowed, his hands trembled when he tried to pour his morning coffee, and the attic became an even more frequent refuge.
She’d hear him shuffling upstairs for hours, only to emerge with dust clinging to his sleeves. He never spoke of what he did there, and she never asked. But the silence between them swelled into something almost unbearable.