Margaret did not hate her son. Hatred was a burden she no longer wanted to carry anywhere. But she was not sorry either.

Because sometimes a woman does not leave to punish anyone. She leaves to save what remains of herself.

That night, before sleeping, she turned off the lights, checked that the door was locked, and looked around. Everything was hers. Not only the furniture.

The peace too. The time. The voice.

She got into bed beneath her own roof with the quiet certainty of someone who had finally stopped asking permission to exist.

They had left her behind because they mistook her silence for weakness.