Chapter 25 - Rebuilding the Kitchen
After the trial, I renovated the kitchen.
Not because it needed renovation.
Because I wanted the room to stop feeling like the place where the vase shattered.
I replaced the countertop.
Added open shelving.
Moved the key hook.
The sealed property folder went into a safe.
The new vase Marta gave me remained empty for months.
Then one afternoon, I placed sunflowers inside it.
That did not mean everything was healed.
It meant the object no longer belonged only to the apology.
Friends asked why I stayed in the apartment.
“Doesn’t it remind you of him?”
Sometimes.
But leaving would have turned his attempted theft into a permanent displacement.
I chose to remain because the home existed before Thomas.
It would exist after him.
The light still fell across the floor each morning.
The cabinets still opened.
May you like
The coffee still brewed.
A room does not belong to the worst thing that happened inside it.
