Previous Chapters: Prologue | 1 | 2
Isla’s Point of View
Valentina had asked everyone to visit in dribs and drabs. When I heard Nico use that phrase, I knew she had told them something simpler — leave us alone on the first day.
The house smelled different.
Not wrong — different. Four days in a hospital room with antiseptic and recycled air, and the smell of home had become the smell of a place I had forgotten I needed. Stone and lemon oil and the faint char of whatever Valentina had last done to the oven and the rosemary from Enzo’s beds below the terrace wall, all of it arriving at once through the front door as though the house had been holding its breath and had just let go.
I stood in the hallway with Carla against my chest and breathed it in.