She sank into the paper-covered table, the chill of the metal seeping into bones that had carried her through wars, births, and funerals. This doctor did not rush. His gaze paused where others had glanced away, as if he understood that the real wound was not on her body, but in the quiet humiliation of not being believed. When he spoke, his voice held both gravity and gentleness. It was not scandal, not sin, not the whispered suspicion that had followed her through waiting rooms. It was neglect—ordinary, unglamorous, slow. A condition that had grown in the shadows, fed by silence and the assumption that age is simply meant to hurt. She almost laughed as he explained, because the truth was both less and more than she’d feared. In being finally seen, she lost a certain illusion of control, yet gained something rarer at her age: the right to be tender with herself.