The kitchen light flickered the way it always did at four in the morning, casting a tired yellow glow over the laundry pile I hadn’t touched in two days. I had just come off a twelve-hour shift, and my feet still throbbed inside my socks. The twins were already up, spoons clinking against cereal bowls, arguing about something only seven-year-old boys cared about.
“Mom, you didn’t sleep again,” Eli said, narrowing his eyes at me like a tiny detective.
“I slept on the bus,” I lied, folding a small T-shirt that had a ketchup stain I would never fully get out.
“That doesn’t count,” Owen muttered.
On the fridge was the reunion invitation.
I smiled at them, the kind of smile that hurt my cheeks because it had to do all the work my voice couldn’t.
On the fridge, half hidden under a permission slip and an unpaid electric bill, was the reunion invitation. Glossy. Cream-colored. Out of place in our small, cluttered life.