Serenity
The Date
After a breakfast of poached eggs and toast, John pushed his chair back with a creak that sounded excessively loud in the sunlit stillness of the dining room. The fine bone china clicked against the saucer, a sharp sound instantly absorbed by the heavy silence of the house. The lingering aroma of dark-roast coffee, still potent, mingled with the faint, earthy scent of damp soil wafting in through the open window—a scent that, this morning, felt less like f