The city moved outside her window, bright and alive. For the first time in years, she didn’t feel like she was surviving something — she was living again. She turned toward her easel, where a half-finished painting waited — a woman standing in sunlight, her back to the storm.
Clara picked up her brush, dipped it into gold, and began to paint again. The brush moved in steady, deliberate strokes, gold blooming across the canvas like sunlight breaking through clouds. Each motion felt lighter than the last, the weight of years lifting one layer at a time.