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66
Writer. @ University of Abuja
The Unseen Hand
<p><br/></p><p><br/></p><p>The morning light, usually a cheerful cascade through the kitchen window, felt thin and watery today. Liam poured his coffee, the familiar clink of the mug against the counter echoing too loudly in the quiet house. He moved with a careful, almost practiced grace, as if walking a tightrope. Never look down when you walk the wire, a voice whispered in his head, a phantom echo of a song he’d heard too many times. He knew if he looked down, if he let his gaze linger on the empty chair at the breakfast nook, the whole fragile balance of his day would shatter.</p><p><br/></p><p>It was his birthday. Forty-nine. Last year, she’d been there, bustling around the kitchen, flour dusting her apron, humming off-key as she mixed the batter. Like she made it to 48, still made your birthday cake. The memory was a sweet, sharp pang. He could almost smell the vanilla and sugar, almost feel the warmth of her hand as she’d placed the slice before him, candles flickering. Now, the kitchen was sterile, the silence heavy.</p><p><br/></p><p>He walked through the living room, his eyes tracing the familiar frames on the wall. All the pictures on the same walls. Her smile, frozen in time, looked out from every one. A family vacation, a silly Halloween costume, a quiet afternoon in the garden. They hadn't moved them. Why would they? It felt like a betrayal to disturb the order she had so carefully created. Sometimes, he’d catch himself expecting her to round the corner, a grocery bag in her hand, a casual greeting on her lips. Looks like she just went to the store. The illusion was comforting, a brief, fleeting reprieve from the stark reality.</p><p><br/></p><p>Later, as he shaved, the steam from the shower still clinging to the mirror, he paused. His reflection stared back, older, a little more tired, but undeniably his. Yet, in the curve of his jaw, the slight crinkle around his eyes when he almost smiled, he saw her. Her influence, her love, her very essence, woven into the fabric of his being. And when you look into the mirror. She wasn't gone. Not truly. She was in the quiet hum of the house, in the unchanging pictures, in the ghost of a birthday cake, and most profoundly, in the man he had become because of her. The wire was still there, but so was the unseen hand, steadying him, guiding him, forever present.</p>
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