ALEXANDER
It’s been three weeks since we returned, and the house has found a rhythm again — not the rhythm it had before, not exactly, but something functional and quiet, like a clock that was stopped and restarted and now keeps time slightly differently than it did.
Emmaline moves through it like someone who is still deciding whether she belongs here.
I notice everything. The way she takes the longer route through the corridor to avoid passing my study. The way she goes still when she hears my voice carrying from the next room, that half-second pause before she continues whatever she was doing. The way she sits in the garden with Maggie in the mornings, her hands resting on the swell of her stomach, her face turned toward the light, and looks more at peace in those moments than she eve
