The sound of utensils clinking against ceramic plates echoed softly in the cozy apartment. Katherine sat at the dining table with the twins, each of them busily scooping rice and vegetables into their mouths between excited chatter. The day had been long, and she was grateful for the calmness of the evening, or at least, she thought it would be calm.
"Mom," Nathan chirped, his mouth still half-full of food. "Is Uncle Felix coming tonight?"
Katherine's hand paused midway to her mouth. Nathan's question hung in the air like a pebble dropped into still water, sending ripples through her carefully constructed calm.
She had hoped, naively, that dinner with the twins would be a distraction. Their laughter, their messy little stories from school, their innocent bickering over who got more tofu. She had wanted to lose herself in the comfort of their presence, to pretend, just for tonight, that her thoughts weren't tangled in everything else.
But of course, she should've seen it coming.