"What path did you take?"
The question hung in the air between them, delicate as the steam rising from the cooling bread, fragile as the afternoon light that pooled across the checkered floor.
Clara opened her mouth.
The afternoon light shifted through the windows, golden beams sliding across the tables, the counter, the wire racks where the bread rested. The dust motes that had been dancing in the air settled slowly, as if even they were leaning in to listen. The bakery, which had felt empty and lonely moments before, now seemed to hold its breath.
Clara's voice was heavier now.
Not loud, she had never been loud, but weighted with something that made the air in the room grow still.
The years had softened her edges, had smoothed the sharp corners of her grief into something bearable, but the story still hurt to tell.
Some wounds never fully closed.
"Long ago," she began, "I fell in love with a man."
