Outside, the sun was dazzling. The sky was painfully blue. I took a breath, and for the first time in years, it felt like my lungs had room.
A few days later, I returned to my villa.
I’d hired professional cleaners—people who worked efficiently, silently, restoring surfaces to pristine condition like they were erasing a crime scene. They’d scrubbed the guest room until Kristen’s perfume no longer haunted it. They’d replaced linens. They’d sanitized handles. They’d reorganized what had been disturbed.
I walked through the house slowly, checking rooms the way you check your own skin after an injury, making sure nothing still hurt.
Then I upgraded everything.