Her days had become predictable. Morning tea. Housework. A short walk. Sitting by the window as the afternoon light disappeared. She had mastered being alone, but she had never figured out how to stop feeling invisible.
Then came her sixty-second birthday.
There was no celebration waiting for her. No flowers arrived. No unexpected visitor knocked on the door. By late afternoon, she sat at her kitchen table with a small piece of chocolate cake she had bought herself. One candle stood in the center, untouched.
That was the moment Evelyn admitted something she had avoided saying for years.
She did not want another quiet night filled with sympathy. She did not want to be seen only as a widow or someone’s mother. She wanted to feel like a woman again. She wanted someone to look at her and recognize that she was still alive.
So she opened her closet and pulled out a dark-blue dress she had not worn since Richard was alive. The dress fit differently now, but she still put it on. She fixed her hair. She added lipstick. Then she stood in front of the mirror longer than she expected.
