Three Green Notebooks Left in a Cedar Chest on Elm Street

quiet, the sort that usually made my ears ring with the absence of sound.

For years, that kind of silence had felt like a weight, a reminder of every person who had moved away or passed on. Now, looking out at the unbroken snow, the emptiness did not feel like a void at all.

I took a slow sip of the hot coffee, watching a lone gray continue reading …