The Unspoken Bond

by Shawna J. Earnest

The room was silent,

but not empty.

The kind of silence

that hums with the presence

of something older than time.

“Let’s go, ”

he whispered, again, more urgently this time.

As if calling to someone

already standing in the doorway.

And in that moment of pause,

his daughter and I both heard it-

not with our ears,

but with something deeper still.

She said, “I know.”

Softly. Yieldingly.

Not to me. Not to him.

But to the moment itself.

I didn’t need to speak.

She wasn’t looking for information,

or even confirmation.

She was asking for a soul mirror-

to show her that love had been enough.

That her presence had been enough.

That she had, in her quiet courage,

done everything right.

So I became that mirror.

Held space like a shoreline

for a wave just beginning to break.

Sometimes,

the greatest truths

pass between us

without ever being spoken.

And in that sacred silence,

my soul remembered-

this is why I’m here.