“Let’s see if they survive without us,” the children had laughed—but the old man was hiding a million-dollar inheritance…

Corinne Fletcher had spent most of her fifty-seven years believing her life would always be defined by sterile hospital corridors, late-night emergencies, and the echo of her own footsteps in an apartment that never felt like home. She was a physician at a clinic in Silvergrove, Colorado. People in town respected her, but respect was not companionship. Admiration was not warmth. Corinne felt as if she existed behind glass. She could peer into other people’s lives, yet never find a door that would let her enter.

On a humid July afternoon, she was driving back from a medical conference. Her mind drifted between exhaustion and the soft thrum of the radio. The landscape rolled out in wide stretches of farmland and faded barns. Then she saw them: two elderly figures at the side of the road, sitting on suitcases, thin and slumped as if life itself had deflated them. Corinne slowed. Her heart tugged at something she could not immediately name—pity, perhaps. Or maybe recognition. She pulled over.

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