It was a Tuesday, the sort that left no mark on a calendar.

Mado stood at the narrow counter with her sleeves rolled to the elbow, a bowl of potatoes between her hands. The skins came away in long curling strips, falling into the basin with soft, damp sounds. Outside, the street carried the ordinary noises of late afternoon—children shouting, a cart rattling past, someone arguing about the price of coal.

The radio on the shelf crackled faintly, tuned low enough to be ignored unless she chose to listen. She did not. The announcer’s voice rose and fell in a distant, impersonal rhythm that belonged to another room, another life.

She rinsed the peeled potatoes under the tap, water running cloudy, then clear. The motion was practiced, economical. She worked the way she always had since the war—one task fully, then the next, no wasted gestures. The cane leaned against the table within reach, not as a reminder, just as fact.

On the windowsill, a row of geraniums leaned toward the light. She had bought them from a market stall two weeks earlier after hesitating too long, then choosing the most stubborn-looking plants. They were already adjusting to the room, leaves firm, red blooms slightly uneven but determined.

“Don’t die,” she muttered to them as she passed, not unkindly.

The chair at the table was pushed out at an angle from where she’d left it that morning. She straightened it with her foot, then paused, hand resting on the back. The apartment smelled faintly of soap and starch and something metallic she could never quite place—polish, perhaps, or just the old pipes in the walls.

She set the pot on the stove, added water, salt, and watched the flame catch. It hissed for a second, then settled into a steady blue. The sound was reassuring in its predictability. Fire, water, time. Things that behaved if you treated them correctly.

A knock came from the wall—two short raps, then one longer. The neighbor. Mado wiped her hands on a cloth and tapped back in the same rhythm. Not a conversation, just proof of existence on both sides of the plaster.

She moved to the small wardrobe in the corner and opened it carefully. Inside hung two jackets, one darker, one patched at the elbow, and a dress she wore only on Sundays. Beneath them, folded with deliberate precision, lay a shirt she did not wear anymore but did not discard. The fabric had gone thin at the cuffs.

She closed the wardrobe again without touching it.

The potatoes began to boil, lid rattling faintly. She lowered the flame and leaned her hip against the counter, letting her weight settle where it hurt least. The room filled slowly with steam, fogging the window until the street outside blurred into shapes and movement without detail.

For a moment, she allowed herself to do nothing.

No ledger. No forms. No careful attention to names and numbers and signatures that needed to look right. Just the small domestic sequence: peel, boil, salt, eat. It was almost luxurious, the simplicity of it.

On the table lay an envelope she had not yet opened. Official paper, thin and gray. It had arrived that morning with the post, placed precisely in the center of the table as if the position might change its contents.

She looked at it now, then looked away again.

“Later,” she said aloud, to no one.

The radio crackled again, a burst of static resolving into music this time. Something light, a dance tune slightly out of fashion. She let it play, tapping her finger once against the counter in time without realizing it.

When the potatoes were done, she drained them, the steam rising hot against her face. She mashed them with butter, working the fork through the bowl until the texture was smooth enough to satisfy her. No lumps. Lumps meant inattention.

She set a single place at the table. Plate, fork, knife, glass. Everything aligned with quiet care. The chair creaked when she lowered herself into it, adjusting the angle until her leg rested comfortably.

The first bite was too hot. She blew on the forkful, then tasted it anyway, the salt just enough, the butter catching at the back of her throat. Simple, filling, sufficient.

Outside, someone laughed loudly. A door slammed. A bicycle bell rang twice in quick succession.

Life, going on in all directions at once.

Mado ate slowly, listening without appearing to listen, cataloguing sounds out of habit she did not question. When she finished, she wiped the plate clean with a small piece of bread, then sat a moment longer with her hands folded on the table.

Only then did she reach for the envelope.

She turned it over once, twice, thumb tracing the edge where it had been sealed. The paper made a faint, dry sound under her nail. She did not open it yet. Instead, she stood, carried her plate to the sink, and washed it immediately, as if finishing the meal properly might steady whatever waited inside the letter.

Water ran. Porcelain clicked softly against the basin. She dried the plate and returned it to the cupboard.

The envelope remained where she had left it, perfectly still.

“Fine,” she said finally, almost amused with herself.

She sat again, picked it up, and slid a finger under the flap. The paper tore cleanly. She unfolded the sheet and read, her expression unchanged, only the small tightening at the corner of her mouth giving anything away.

When she finished, she refolded it along the original crease and set it back on the table.

The radio music ended. Static filled the room for a moment before the announcer’s voice returned, calm and distant, speaking about things that felt both important and entirely removed from the small, orderly apartment.

Mado reached out and switched the radio off.

The silence that followed was not empty. It was contained, deliberate, like a breath held just long enough before the next movement began.