Every morning for the past seventeen years, Mara had made two cups of coffee.

One with a splash of cream and a spoonful of honey—for herself.

The other, black and steaming—for the man who once sat across from her in the kitchen, always first to speak, always halfway through the newspaper before she even took a sip.

The morning sun filtered through the same floral curtains he had insisted on keeping, even when they grew threadbare. The chairs still sat angled toward each other at the table. His chair, worn at the arms, never got moved, never got cleaned too thoroughly. As if his scent might linger a little longer that way.

When he died, people brought casseroles and folded sympathy. They hugged too tightly. They said things like “He’s still here in spirit,” and “At least you had a great love.”

What they never mentioned was what to do with the empty chair, the unspoken expectation, the second cup.

So Mara kept making it.

For seventeen years.

Until this morning.

Her hand hovered above the coffee pot, two mugs on the counter. Steam curled upward like a question.

She stared at the second mug. The black one. The one that never cooled fast enough for him. The one that had grown more silent each year.

And then, like a quiet tide retreating, she knew.

Not all endings are cataclysmic. Some are as simple as realizing you are standing in a life that no longer needs to be held together by habits built for someone who isn’t coming back.

She poured only one cup.

She sat alone, but not lonely.

The silence didn’t ache today.

It just was.

She took a sip. Bitterness. Warmth.

A beginning.