#shared silence

They didn’t say sorry.

Not out loud. Not in the dramatic, cinematic way.

No one cried. No one made a speech. No one asked, “Can we go back to how it was?”

They just made bread. Together.

Liliana kneaded the dough with too much strength. Rosalina measured the flour with trembling hands. Petunia hummed Christmas songs slightly off-key.

The kitchen smelled like safety. Like yeast and cinnamon and hope.

They didn’t talk about the argument. The one from weeks ago. The one that ended in silence and slammed doors.

But someone handed someone else the rolling pin. Someone buttered the pan. Someone reached across the counter with flour-dusted fingers and smiled.

And that was enough.

Because forgiveness doesn’t always come in words. Sometimes, it’s in gestures. In shared dough. In the way the timer beeps and no one rushes to be the first to turn it off.

They tore pieces from the same loaf. Passed butter without being asked. Ate in silence, but the kind that heals, not the kind that punishes.

Warm bread. Nothing fancy. Just soft and golden and real.

And when the last piece was gone, they felt full. Not just in their stomachs. But in the quiet place that had been waiting to be held again.

They never said “I forgive you.” But they passed the bread like it was love.

I, soaking in the bath, O on the toilet, talking, talking about what he’s been thinking and writing—short personal pieces, for a memoir perhaps. He had brought with him two pillows to sit on and a very large red apple. He opens his mouth wide and takes a gigantic bite. I watch him chewing for quite a while. After he finishes, “Bite me off a piece,” I say. He does so, dislodges the apple from his mouth, and puts the piece in my mouth. We keep talking. I add more hot water. Every other bite, he gives to me. 

There is a quiet moment and then, seemingly apropos of nothing, O says: “I am glad to be on planet Earth with you. It would be much lonelier otherwise.” 

I reach for his hand and hold it. 

“I, too,” I say.

being high on the energy we radiate in each other's presence

feeling bliss.