ELARA~
The silence of my father's house was absolute. I couldn't call this a home. Never!
Beatrice had left at seven this morning. Before stepping out, she double-checked my oxygen levels, handed me a revised prescription file, and offered that same quiet, pitying look she had given me for days. I didn't ask her anything else about Isla. I didn't ask if she was going back to Redid. I didn't care.
I spent most of the late morning sitting on the edge of the sprawling leather sofa in the secondary parlor, staring blindly at my phone.
My mind kept wandering to Redid—my actual home. The small, private apartment I had bought with my very first royalty check three years ago. I caught myself thinking about the dust that must have settled over the piano keys by now. Four or five months of untouched air, closed blinds, and stale silence. Nobody knew the keycode to that place except me.
Yet I had stayed in that state up until just a few days ago and never thought of visiting.
