They remembered, suddenly and collectively, that my mom was not someone to be trifled with.
I turned back toward the house, feeling a knot of unease tighten in my stomach.
It wasn’t the gear that unsettled me; it was the heavy silence that hung over the street, the kind that seemed to stifle the usual morning buzz.
Inside, I found myself pacing the living room, trying to shake the feeling of impending confrontation, the sense that something crucial was being buried beneath layers of forced normalcy.
Most days, our life appeared ordinary to an outsider.
I helped Mom in the mornings, checked on my little brother, and went to school.
But her job loomed over us like a shadow, a constant presence that was both intangible and inescapable.
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