Dear @kemmyb, your words are gold to me. We do get involved with our characters when we write, don't we? It's great when readers also 'feel' them.
I appreciate your very kind assessment. I saw the world clearly as I wrote. The issue really was leaving stuff out. I had it all in my head and then realized I couldn't put all that into a very short story 😁
Thanks for reading and commenting. Hope things are good for you.