Chapter 13 — Something Hard Inside

It was late that night, long after the house had finally emptied and gone quiet again, that I sat alone at the kitchen table with the pillow in front of me.

I had not slept.

I do not think I could have.

I sat under the single kitchen light with a cup of tea going cold at my elbow and looked at that poor ruined thing lying on the wood, and grief moved through me in long slow waves.

The fabric had split along one seam, and a few old goose feathers had worked their way out through the gap and lay scattered on the table like something molted.