Rain tapped on the tin roof in Morse code, urgent, indecipherable. She sat cradling tea and old regrets, watching the world blur into watercolor. Puddles held reflections of things long gone. Thunder rolled a lazy drumbeat. The storm didn’t cleanse her soul, but it reminded her she still had one.
She bakes one special pastry with care—cinnamon, apples, and arsenic. At the reunion, Eric alone has that one, still laughing about prom night, unaware she remembers everything. He compliments her baking. She smiles, knowing that by dessert’s end, justice will be served warm, and nobody will suspect the quiet girl.
When his self became a fear he couldn’t outrun, he woke his wife, and they drove through the night to comfort him. In those dark hours, they passed closed churches and open cookie shops. Normally he would have said something clever about that fact, but now it only frightened him.