The girls talked continuously as Matteo listened from the doorway, their voices filled with excitement and wonder as they described the colors of the sky, the sparkle of water in the fountain, the movement of people and birds, and the softness of the woman’s shawl, and each word landed heavily in his chest as he realized they were not imagining these details but recalling them with clarity.
“How do you know these things,” he asked at last, his voice strained as he leaned against the doorframe.
“We saw them,” one replied simply.
“You have never seen,” he said, though his certainty was crumbling with every breath.
“Not before,” another answered. “She showed us how to open our eyes.”
Sleep never came that night.
Matteo sat alone in his study, holding a photograph of his late wife Isadora, taken years earlier when laughter had come easily and fear had not yet learned how to live in his home. She had believed in intuition and kindness, in things that could not always be measured, and as grief washed over him, he wondered whether his insistence on certainty and authority had blinded him in ways far more dangerous than darkness.
The next afternoon, he returned to the plaza.