Chapter 18 - Isabella’s MemoryHealing did not look like a miracle.
It looked like Isabella forgetting where she was and screaming when a door clicked shut.
It looked like Mateo refusing therapy three times before finally agreeing because Rosa sat outside the office with a crossword puzzle and a bag of sour candy.
It looked like Lucian learning to knock.
Not once.
Every time.
Even when the door was open.
Especially when the door was open.
Isabella moved into the guest cottage behind the estate because she could not sleep under the mansion roof. Mateo went with her. Rosa stayed in the cottage too, not as staff, but because Isabella asked and Mateo begged.
Lucian remained in the main house alone.
A fitting punishment, some people online said.
A necessary distance, Rosa thought.
Every evening, Lucian walked to the cottage and waited at the garden bench. Sometimes Mateo came out. Sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes Isabella watched from the window and never opened the door.
Lucian never demanded more.
One evening, Mateo came out holding the repaired music box.
The white horse had been glued carefully. Imperfectly. A thin crack still showed along its neck.
“You fixed it wrong,” Mateo said.
Lucian looked at it.
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you pay someone?”
“Because you asked me not to.”
Mateo turned the music box in his hands.
“The crack still shows.”
Lucian nodded.
“Some things do.”
Mateo sat beside him on the bench.
They listened to the music together.
After a while, Mateo asked, “Did you love her?”
Lucian closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you find her?”
There it was.
The question no court could sentence, no lawyer could soften.
Lucian looked toward the cottage window where Isabella’s shadow moved behind the curtain.
“Because I believed the people who made my life easier instead of the person who made me better.”
Mateo considered that.
“Mrs. Rosa says grown-ups do that a lot.”
“She’s right.”
“Are you going to do it again?”
Lucian’s throat tightened.
“I’m trying not to.”
Mateo looked at him.
“That’s not an answer.”
Lucian almost smiled.
“No,” he said. “I am not going to do it again.”
Mateo nodded.
Then he leaned very slightly against his father’s arm.
Lucian did not move.
He barely breathed.
From the cottage window, Isabella watched.
May you like
Her face was unreadable.
But she did not close the curtain.
