By then, the noise lived in her thoughts even when the house was silent. At work, she lost her place in emails, hearing phantom knocks between lines of text. On the walk to Emma’s school, she caught herself glancing back at the blank bricks as if the sound might follow them outside.
By the end of the month, the fatigue began to show. Lucy caught her reflection in a shop window one afternoon—drawn face, shoulders hunched as if she were bracing against a wind that never quite arrived. When the school secretary asked gently if everything was all right, she lied and said she just needed more coffee.