The living room was awfully quiet, except for the occasional rustling of pages and the distant hum of the refrigerator.
The house, once filled with warmth and laughter, was an empty shell of its past. The lights were dim, and the air was heavy with an unspoken sorrow that had settled in over the past month.
Maximus's mother, Rosetta, sat by the small table near the window, her fingers lightly tracing the rim of a ceramic cup.
She was a beautiful woman, though the years had started to show in the fine lines around her dee set eyes.
The light from the television flickered across her face, but she wasn't watching it, her gaze was fixed on the window as she was emersly lost in thought.
It had been a long time since she had last seen her son, way too long that she couldn't possibly know what he looked like or the type of man he had become.
On the large couch in the center of the living room, maximus's father, Jamal, lay with a book drooped over his face.
