𝖜𝖍𝖎𝖘𝖕𝖊𝖗 𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖌𝖔𝖙𝖙𝖊𝖓 𝖕𝖗𝖆𝖞𝖊𝖗𝖘 𝖙𝖔, L0ST ⌖ S0ULS.

Mornings in Winchester began quietly. Joelthane would wake to the soft patter of rain against his window, brew a cup of tea, and watch the steam curl upward in the gray light. He preferred the silence to conversation, though sometimes the quiet felt too full, as if the walls were holding their own memories.Downstairs, at a small café around the corner, the barista greeted him the same way she always did.“Tea? Earl Grey?” she asked, not waiting for an answer.He nodded, settling into his usual corner. From here, he could watch the street without being noticed, see people pass and whisper to themselves, and imagine the stories they carried.
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Later, at the foundation, he moved among the offices with the calm precision that had made him a respected attorney.“Joelthane, there’s a family waiting in the main room. Two parents and a boy,”a volunteer called out.“Thank you,” he said, walking slowly toward the room. He watched the boy fidget, hands clenching the edges of his chair. Joelthane knelt slightly to meet him at eye level.“You can take your time,” he said. “No one’s in a hurry here.”The boy blinked, a small smile forming, and Joelthane realized that in moments like this, words mattered less than patience.
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I.       —       Joelthane often remembered Leuven not for the light that filled its streets, but for the quiet that lingered in its corners. The house he had grown up in was never truly dark, yet after his parents divorced, it had acquired a chill all its own. Sunlight still spilled across polished floors, dust motes dancing lazily in its beams, but the warmth of shared lives had fled. His mother had gone quietly, leaving rooms that seemed to watch him, and his father, remained distant but not unkind, capable of generosity, incapable of intimacy. Even when he spoke, there was a measured precision to his words, a careful distance that left Joelthane both respected and isolated.II.       —       When he was old enough to leave, he moved to London, seeking distance, structure, and a space where he could define the rhythm of his own life. The city was loud in ways Leuven had never been, streetcars clanging against metal rails, voices spilling from cafés, the persistent hum of a million lives unfolding at once.III.       —       He became a family law attorney, moving among estranged parents, children caught between worlds, couples who could no longer live together yet could not bear to hate one another. He listened more than he spoke, offering guidance with precision and care. Yet each case left its echo, a quiet trace that followed him home. London, with its relentless hum, could not wash away the memory of absent warmth, nor the habit of carrying silence like a second skin.IV.       —       Eventually, he left the city. Winchester, with its soft rain and old stone streets, offered a quieter rhythm. There, he founded the Larkspur Foundation, a non-profit devoted to families and adolescents learning to rebuild after separation and loss. The name came from a flower his mother had once loved. He did not call it charity, only care, patient and deliberate.
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͏⎯⎯ 𝖆𝖗𝖈𝖍𝖎𝖛𝖊. * * *
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