Morning settled gently over Menaggio, casting soft sunlight over terracotta rooftops and cobblestone streets. The town woke slowly, shops unlocking, bicycles rolling past, and the scent of warm bread drifting through the air. Alessia Bianchi liked this hour and walked this familiar path because to her it was the only time the world felt peaceful enough to breathe.
She stepped out of the small apartment she shared with her aunt, with her notebook tucked beneath her arm, her cardigan pulled close as though it could protect her from memories that rose too easily.
Menaggio was peaceful, but that peace didn't reach the heaviness inside her as she made her way toward the community arts center where she worked a job that paid modestly but gave her something she desperately needed; purpose.
Inside the center, the art room waited with its cluttered charm, paint-stained aprons, jars of mismatched brushes and canvases from previous classes hung crookedly on the walls. Alessia inhaled deeply, having this sense of reasoning that this room was a sanctuary.
A place where sadness softened and children's laughter filled the cracks.
She set out supplies in silence, adjusting palettes and organizing brushes until when her fingers brushed against an old yellow apron that once belonged to her mother; she paused.
The floral fabric was faded, but it carried the warmth she still missed.
"Art lets the heart speak," her mother used to say.
Alessia believed that more than ever.
One by one, children arrived, small footsteps with excited chatter.
A little girl named Sophia burst into the room with her backpack bouncing and with wild curls.
"Miss Alessia! Look, I drew the lake!" she said.
Alessia crouched beside her. "Let me see."
The drawing was messy but full of heart, blue swirls, yellow boats and a scribbled sun.
"It's beautiful," Alessia said softly. "Just like you."
The child beamed.
Moments like this steadied her because they reminded her there were still pockets of joy in the world, even after everything she had lost.
When the class began, she moved between tables, correcting brush angles, encouraging shy hands and guided them through colors and shapes, kneeling beside them to adjust a hand position or encourage a shy brushstroke. She smiled, she laughed and she taught.
But somewhere beneath the gentle routine, a quiet unrest pulsed.
Art had saved her once from bustling and frightening emotions and it still did.
At noon, she stepped outside to sit on the low stone wall near the fountain. She opened her notebook, running her fingers over the page where she kept some of the words her mother had written. The ink was faded, the edges softened by time.
She read the first line for the thousandth time:
"Alessia, my dove, never let the world make you small."
She swallowed.
Some days, she felt small anyway.
The workshop ended, and Alessia stepped outside, letting the lake breeze wash over her. Tourists wandered nearby, taking photos and sipping espresso, but her gaze stretched far beyond the water.
Her father used to sketch from these shores boats, mountains and her mother's face. Those drawings were gone now, lost along with everything else. The Bianchi name once meant craftsmanship, art, and legacy not until it all collapsed, until the accident and until rivals moved like shadows in the night, taking pieces of their lives while she and her parents were too vulnerable to defend themselves.
Alessia turned away from the lake, drifting away from some memories that still hurt to look at directly.
When she reached home, she found her aunt Maria sitting on the small balcony, hands wrapped around a cup of tea. Maria looked tired lately with more lines around her eyes, more weight on her shoulders than one person should carry.
"You're early today," Maria said.
"Class ended a little sooner." Alessia dropped her bag on the chair.
Maria studied her face. "What's wrong Alessia?"
Alessia sighed inwardly. (There was no point pretending with the one person who had held her through every storm).
"It's… one of those days." She said,
Maria nodded knowingly. "Sit."
They sat together, facing the shimmering lake. For a moment, neither spoke.
Finally, Alessia whispered, "Do you ever think about… what really happened to them?"
Maria's fingers tightened around her cup. "Every day."
Alessia's breath hitched. "Then why don't we ever talk about it?"
Maria took a long sip of tea before answering. "Because talking doesn't heal everything."
"But something didn't add up," Alessia insisted quietly. "The company is collapsing out of nowhere, the debts, the threats they never told me about and then the accident…" Her voice cracked. "It felt like someone wanted them gone."
Maria closed her eyes, the pain too raw. " you are right, but signs don't become justice."
Alessia turned toward her aunt. "Are you hiding something from me?"
Maria looked at her with a sadness so deep it almost felt like defeat. "I am protecting you."
"From what?" Alessia's voice trembled.
Maria's eyes glistened, but she held her composure. "From the kind of people who swallow entire families without blinking and from the kind of power you can't fight."
Silence stretched thick between them.
The lake shimmered, oblivious to the ache sitting on that balcony.
Finally, Alessia whispered, "I don't want to live afraid anymore."
Maria reached for her hand. "Fear keeps us alive."
(Alessia didn't respond. Her chest felt tight, her thoughts tangled in old grief and unanswered questions. She had spent years keeping her head down, focusing on survival and refusing to touch the edges of the truth.
But something inside her had shifted. A quiet courage, a spark and a hunger to reclaim what life had taken.)
Later that evening, Alessia sat alone at the small dining table, her notebook open. She removed the folded letter her mother had written the last letter she ever received. She smoothed it out gently.
"Dove,
Not every closed door is a loss.
Sometimes the world is saving you from something you cannot yet see."
Alessia blinked away tears.
"I miss you," she murmured to the ink.
(The lamp flickered softly, casting shadows across the room. She looked at the walls, at the secondhand furniture, at the mismatched curtains she and Maria had hung themselves. This life wasn't bad, but it wasn't the life she was meant to live either.
She wanted answers, justice and freedom.
And for the first time in years, she felt change on the horizon, A shift in the air and a whisper beneath her ribs telling her life was about to stop being predictable.
She didn't know it yet, but fate was already moving toward her quietly, steadily and inevitably.)
Tonight, though, she simply closed her notebook and held her mother's letter against her heart.
She whispered into the silence,
"There has to be more waiting for me."
Outside, the wind rattled the shutters like a warning or a promise and everything seemed still with calmness filling the air but the storm that would change everything she believed in had not yet arrived.