The Sacred Hour

There’s exactly one hour every morning where the house is quiet. Not silent - Marcus is already clicking away on his keyboard upstairs, and I can hear Biscuit’s tail thumping against his crate. But quiet in the way that matters.

The Sacred Hour

We’ve gotten good at this dance. Coffee first, conversation optional. Sometimes we talk about the day ahead or complain about whoever left dishes in the sink. Today we just sat there, both of us scrolling our phones like the antisocial middle-aged people we’ve become.

Then Theo’s alarm went off upstairs and the spell was broken. Lunches to pack, backpacks to find, the eternal search for Theo’s other shoe. But for thirty-seven minutes, it was just us and our coffee and the promise that we might actually be functional humans today.