Eli kept one chair by the window.
Not for customers.
Not for visitors.
Just for her.
It was an old wooden chair, slightly worn at the edges, with pencil marks along one armrest where Mira used to tap rhythms only Luka could understand. He never moved it. Never dusted it too thoroughly. It stayed exactly as she had left it—sketchpad open on the seat beside it, pencil resting lightly between the pages.
People noticed.
Some asked about it.
He never gave a full answer.
Just said, "That's where she used to sit."
And somehow, everyone understood.
Years had passed since Mira stepped through the door beneath the birch tree and never came back.
Time didn't erase her.
It just changed the way they remembered.
Eli still drew every night—not as often as before, but enough to keep her voice alive in the quiet spaces of the apartment above the hardware store. He filled notebooks with sketches of things he couldn't explain—people he'd never met standing in places that felt familiar, spirals drawn in the margins like silent prayers.
Sometimes, when the wind shifted just right, he swore he could hear her hand flipping through paper.
Other times, he'd wake up to find a new sketch waiting for him.
Drawn in soft charcoal.
Smudged just enough to feel like memory.
He never questioned it.
He just smiled.
Then signed into the silence:
Thank you.
Luka returned that spring.
Later than usual.
When Eli saw him step off the train, he knew something had changed.
There was a weight in Luka's posture, a quietness in his steps that hadn't been there before.
They walked together in silence toward the shop.
Eventually, Luka spoke.
"I think I'm forgetting how to hear them."
Eli glanced at him.
"The echoes," Luka clarified. "I used to feel them everywhere. In other towns. In forgotten places. But now… nothing."
Eli considered this as they reached the store.
Inside, he motioned toward the chair by the window.
Luka hesitated—then sat.
For a long time, neither of them spoke.
Then Eli reached for Mira's sketchpad and flipped through the pages.
Each drawing carried a story.
A life.
A moment that had once been lost.
He stopped on one.
A girl sitting alone beneath a tree, hands outstretched toward something unseen.
Beside her, a boy stood quietly, listening.
Luka stared at it. "Do you ever wonder if we were just meant to help them remember?"
Eli nodded once.
Then signed:
Maybe we're done now.
Luka exhaled slowly. "Or maybe we just learned how to listen differently."
Eli looked at him.
Then added:
She's still here. Just not in the same way.
Luka swallowed hard. "I know."
Then he placed his hand over his chest.
Closed his eyes.
And for the first time in months, he felt it again.
A rhythm.
A hum.
A presence.
Faint.
But real.
Like the echo of a voice that had never truly gone away.
Outside, the wind stirred.
The leaves whispered against the glass.
And in the quiet space between breaths—
Someone listened.
Always.
wins?