The kitchen was silent except for the faint hum of the refrigerator. Outside, the streetlights flickered in the humid night.
Lisa sat at the small round table, her fingers wrapped around a steaming mug of tea. She looked tired or more tired than usual, but her eyes tracked every movement Kalisa made, the way they always did when she suspected her daughter was about to push for something she didn't want to give.
Kalisa stood across from her, hands resting on the back of the chair in front of her. Her heart was thudding in her chest. She'd been thinking about this conversation for days, rehearsing it in her mind over and over.
Now, the words stuck in her throat, but she forced them out. She had never seen her mother in this kind of silent pain. Her mother has said a lot, things that she would not have told her.
She wanted to ask her more, but the conversation had not been going as she had planned in her head. Her mother is in pain, and this was no deceit.
