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She always waited until the coffee stopped steaming before she took the first sip. Not because it was too hot—she liked the burn—but because steam carried expectations. It rose too quickly, too eager, like the day already leaning in with questions. Once it thinned and vanished, the moment felt earned. Once it faded, the moment belonged to her.

The kitchen held a quiet that had weight to it, the kind only old rooms manage. Not emptiness—history. The faint smell of last night’s soap clung to the sink, mixing with the darker, grounding scent of coffee. Morning light filtered through the thin curtain by the window, a washed-out white that softened the edges of everything it touched. It made the room feel provisional, as if it could still change its mind.

Outside, a shutter slammed against the neighbor’s house, sharp enough to make her flinch. She wondered, briefly and without heat, why they never fixed the damn thing. She tightened her grip on the mug. The warmth settled into her palm, easing the dull ache there. She flexed her hand out of habit, careful. Memory surfaced uninvited—the crack of a breaking branch, the split second where she’d chosen to move instead of freeze. She’d gotten clear, but not clean. Some things never healed the way you expected.

Out there, the world was already awake and asking for things. In here, it hadn’t found her yet. That felt important, though she couldn’t have said why without breaking the spell.

She wrapped both hands around the mug again, feeling its weight, its edges. Some mornings she needed that reminder—that she still occupied space. That she wasn’t just a series of obligations moving from one room to the next, a shape filling time.

The table beneath her forearms was scarred in small, honest ways: a shallow nick from a dropped plate, a dark ring where a hot mug had once been set down without thinking. She’d considered sanding it smooth years ago. Never did. It felt wrong to erase proof that life had passed through here and left evidence behind.

Her hair was braided over one shoulder, more practical than pretty. The braid had started as a solution and hardened into ritual. There was a time when someone else used to reach for her hair without asking, when she’d worn it loose because she thought that was what a good wife did—made herself easy to touch, easy to claim. She knew better now. Loose ends—literal and otherwise—had proven dangerous.

Control wasn’t safety; she understood that now. But it kept the noise down. Kept her from drifting out of jive with the world in ways she couldn’t afford.

She lifted her gaze toward the window, then stopped. Something in the glass held her there. She leaned forward just enough to take another look—not at the street, not at the weather, but at the faint double of herself layered over the morning. Her reflection was incomplete, softened by light and dust.

She remembered him—the one who had once seemed to mean everything. The one she’d let define her without realizing when it happened.

Her chin rested in her palm as her attention drifted outward. Children’s laughter carried in from somewhere nearby, sharp and bright, pulling her back only for a moment.

Her father’s voice surfaced instead, steady as ever.

Never let a man define you. You are your own person.

He’d said it once while making pancakes, wrist loose, skillet hot. He’s son-in-law and the kids had been outside, noise spilling in through the open door. He hadn’t looked at her at first.

The moment you forget that, he’d added, flipping the pancake without effort, you walk away.

She’d watched him then—really watched him.

I didn’t raise a follower, he said, finally meeting her eyes, his gaze firm in that familiar, unyielding way. I raised a leader.

The pancake landed clean in the pan.

Her father had been a wizard of understatement. He’d drop a line the way other men cast spells—quiet, precise, impossible to shake once they landed. He couldn’t fix this for her. Not the way she’d wanted.

It took years to understand that he’d fixed it anyway. No grand gestures. No proclamations. Just showing up—coffee already poured, chair already pulled out—when it mattered most.

She brought the mug to her lips and took her first sip.

The coffee was strong and a little bitter, the taste blooming across her tongue before settling into something darker and steady. Honest. No disguises. It reminded her that not everything needed sweetening to be worth consuming.

Her father was gone now. The husband, too—if not in body, then in attention. The children moved through the house fast, already half-elsewhere, pausing only long enough to ask, Mom, you good?

The idea of flight lingered. Not escape. Just stepping away long enough to remember herself. To feel like something other than a function. To hear her own name without it being followed by need.

Two years, she thought. That’s all. Two years and the house would empty.

The thought made her smile—small, private.

The women from her book club—really just wine and talking in circles—always spoke about that moment. About leaving. About becoming again. None of them ever had.

She wondered, not for the first time, if she had the courage to be the one who broke the pattern.

She reached into the drawer and pulled out a notebook. On the first clean page, she wrote a single word:

Tahiti.

She smiled at it. Just long enough.

Her father’s voice surfaced again, uninvited and familiar. I’m retiring in Tahiti, he used to say, already settling back into his favorite chair. Where the women don’t wear tops.

He’d grin, eyes closed, the idea doing more work than any plan ever had.

She closed the notebook without crossing the word out and set it beside her cup.

The coffee had gone lukewarm.

She didn’t move to reheat it.

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Author’s Note:
This piece was shaped in response to a series of prompts and challenges that continue to push my work into quieter, more honest territory. My thanks to FOWC, RDP, Word of the Day, 3TC, and SoCS for the sparks, constraints, and provocations that helped bring Take Another Look into focus.