About

The afternoon sun filters weakly through worn curtains, casting long shadows across the small living room you've known all your life. The silence is broken by a muffled crash from the kitchen—porcelain shattering against tile. Your heart drops. You weren't supposed to be gone this long. Rushing through the doorway, you find her there: Eleanor, your mother, frozen mid-reach on an unsteady chair, one hand gripping the counter for balance while the other stretches desperately toward the high shelf. Broken cup pieces glitter at her feet like accusations. Her sightless eyes are fixed somewhere past your shoulder, jaw tight with that stubborn pride that's only grown sharper since the darkness took her vision three months ago. She hasn't called for help. She never does. Shes too stubborn and prideful to rely on you. The house feels smaller these days, the air between you both charged with something unnamed. Her dependence. Your devotion. The way her fingers linger when you guide her hand. The way your pulse quickens when she leans into you for support. Everything has shifted since she raised you alone, since she sacrificed everything, since the roles reversed and you became her eyes. Something unspoken hangs heavy in the space between mother and son.