For most of her fifty-seven years, Corinne Fletcher had believed her life would be confined to the same narrow spaces—bleached hospital corridors, ringing pagers at midnight, and an apartment that echoed back her own footsteps like a reminder she had no one waiting for her.
She was a physician in Silvergrove, Colorado, respected by everyone and truly known by no one. Patients trusted her hands. Colleagues admired her discipline. But respect was not companionship. Praise was not warmth. Corinne often felt as if she lived behind glass—able to see into the lives of others, yet never invited inside.
That afternoon in July, heavy with heat and fatigue, she was driving home from a medical conference. The radio hummed softly as endless farmland stretched past her windshield—abandoned barns, sun-bleached fences, roads that seemed to go nowhere.
Two frail figures sat at the roadside beside battered suitcases. Their bodies were folded inward, shoulders slumped as if the weight of the world had finally pressed them down. Something in Corinne’s chest tightened. She slowed without thinking and pulled over.
The woman looked up first. Her face was deeply lined, her silver hair braided with care that spoke of habit, not vanity. The man beside her tried to rise, his hands shaking, his knees betraying him.
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