Arianne woke to the sound of someone moving through the room without sound.
The curtains had been drawn back just enough to let in the midday light, pale and gold across the bedspread. The smell of fresh linen and a trace of floral and familiar—Aunt Estella's soap, the kind she had used for decades—drifted through the air. Arianne lay there, orienting herself. Franz's room. His bed. The sheets tangled around her legs. The pillow beside her empty but holding the soft impression of his head.
Aunt Estella was tidying the nightstand, her movements efficient and unhurried, the way she had moved through Arianne's life for as long as she could remember. She had been there when Arianne was born, and through the exile and the return and the slow rebuilding of everything that had been broken. She was here now, in Franz's bedroom, folding a throw blanket that had slipped to the floor.
