January arrived with a deep freeze that made the windows frost over every morning. The house on Maple Lane felt smaller in the cold, but in a way that was strangely comforting. Amina had stayed through the first week of the new year, longer than she originally planned. She hadn’t announced it as a big decision. She simply kept extending her visit one day at a time, as if testing how long she could stay without the old version of normal feeling too far away.
On the morning of January 5th, she came into the kitchen while Elias was making oatmeal. She sat at the table in her old hoodie and watched him stir for a while before speaking.
“I think I should go back tomorrow,” she said quietly. “Classes start again on the seventh. I’ve already missed too much orientation stuff for the spring seme
