I stood frozen, my eyes fixed on the face lying peacefully in the open casket.
It was unmistakable—aged, yes, but still her.
Martha Summers was my high school English teacher.
The one who had pulled me aside after class one rainy afternoon and told me my writing meant something.
The one who saw light in me when I couldn’t see it myself.
I hadn’t thought of her in years.
I hadn’t even known she still lived in the city.
Suddenly, the weight of the day—the canceled project, the shift in direction, the strange decision to walk into a stranger’s funeral—clicked into place.
Maybe I was never meant to be at the office today.
Maybe I was meant to remember where I started.
To be reminded—by a woman I hadn’t seen in decades—that I still had something to say.