Two Shadows in the Emptiness
“Do you even realise your fridge has been empty for a week?” Antony’s voice cut through the air, sharp and cold like a January gust. He stood in the kitchen doorway, still wearing his coat, as if afraid to linger too long in this bleak place—peeling paint on the walls, the stale scent of old wood hanging heavy.
Molly didn’t answer. She sat hunched on a rickety chair, arms wrapped around herself, watching a thin strip of light struggle through the grimy window and tremble on the scuffed linoleum. It was Sunday morning, but inside her, it felt like the dead of November. Every word, every gesture demanded energy she didn’t have.
“I don’t get how you can live like this,” Antony went on, peering into the empty saucepan on the hob as if hoping to find traces of a meal. “Do you even eat?”
She shrugged faintly. The truth was simple: sometimes she did, sometimes she didn’t. Same as anyone. Except somewhere inside her, the mechanism that fuelled joy, hunger, life itself, had flickered out.
Antony was her older brother. The only one who still visited. Once a month, he turned up like clockwork, just as he had when they were kids and their dad sent him to check she hadn’t scraped her knee or left the lights on. But their father was gone now. And Molly lived as if trapped in a glass box, the air growing heavier, the walls staying transparent.
“I’ll buy you groceries,” he said firmly, like a judge passing sentence. “Meat, potatoes, veg. You’ll make a stew. Proper one. Understood?”
Molly nodded. Not agreement—just exhaustion. Her chest felt hollow, like an abandoned house where dust coated the windows and the echo of footsteps was louder than any words.
He left half an hour later, leaving a bag of shopping on the table and the ghost of his presence—sharp cologne and the same old phrases. “Pull yourself together.” “Life goes on.” “It’ll all work out.”
When the door clicked shut, Molly stood slowly, as if afraid to disturb the silence. She unpacked the shopping: potatoes, onions, butter, milk. The meat—a cut of beef, fresh, glistening under the kitchen light. She carried it to the window, shoved the pane open, and tossed it into the garden. Then she shut the window just as carefully, as if sealing something away. The rest went into the fridge. Not out of spite—just shame that the meat seemed alive in a way she didn’t.
She worked from home as an analyst for a company she knew only by the logo on emails. Her world had shrunk to her laptop screen, spreadsheets, reports. Numbers lined up in tidy rows, formulas never failed, the sums always balanced. Sometimes she almost believed life could be reduced to a ledger—assets, liabilities, the bottom line. But life refused to add up. Losses defied accounting, and the balance always tipped into the red, leaving a void no figure could fill.
On Wednesday, her phone rang. An unknown number, a woman’s voice—calm, with a faint rasp.
“Molly Harper?”
“Yes.”
“This is Paws for Hope shelter. You applied to volunteer?”
Molly froze. Her fingers found a biscuit crumb on the table and rolled it absently, as if trying to crush the weight lodged in her chest.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Months ago, I think.”
“We need help. Especially weekends. Got thirty dogs and cats here.”
That Saturday, she went. A small house on the city’s edge, skeletal trees clawing at the sky. The smell of damp fur, antiseptic, and something stubbornly alive. A woman in a worn jumper jerked her chin at her.
“Kick off your shoes, wash up. Puppies there, injured lot here, old-timers in the back. Plenty to do.”
One dog—shaggy, with a patchy flank and watchful eyes—kept staring at her. Molly crouched beside him, ran a hand over his coat. Warm. Alive. Real. He smelled of earth and wet dog and sheer bloody-minded will.
He nudged her palm with his nose and stayed close. The woman in the jumper shook her head.
“Winston doesn’t take to strangers. But he likes you.”
Within an hour, Molly was scrubbing kennels, hauling sacks of feed, soothing shivering pups. Her back ached, her hands reddened from scrubbing, her hair clung to her forehead—but inside, something thawed. For the first time in months, she didn’t feel like a ghost. Just a person—tired, sore, alive.
“Come back tomorrow if you can,” the woman said, wiping her hands on her apron.
“I will,” Molly said. And she meant it. Even if it meant slogging across town through rain and biting wind, she’d be there.
A month later, Winston came home with her. He sniffed every corner of the flat before settling on the threadbare rug in a warm, scruffy heap. Antony dropped by with a bowl, a bag of kibble, and a squeaky bone.
“Looks like a proper life now,” he said, eyeing the dog. “Getting there.”
Molly smiled. First time in forever. Later, she bought flowers—daisies, simple things straining toward the sun. New curtains—cheap, but patterned like meadows from childhood. She picked them carefully, as if her future depended on it. Fresh bedsheets—crisp white, smelling of laundry powder and morning air. And she started baking. Just so the flat smelled of warmth, not emptiness. Kneading dough with her hands, working in all the words she couldn’t say.
Some mornings, she still woke with lead in her chest. Some days, she stared out the window and swore nothing had changed. On those days, she wanted to burrow under the duvet, switch off her phone, pretend the world didn’t exist. But now there was a food bowl in the corner, a chewed-up toy on the floor, and Winston sprawled on the sofa—warm, alive. And life, cracked as old china, felt real again. Not perfect. But worth holding onto.
