where wounds speak

The rain had not stopped for hours. It fell in long, icy sheets that lashed against the windshield, blurring the world outside until everything was nothing but a gray smear. The wipers fought in vain, their rhythmic squeaks unable to keep pace with the downpour. It was as though the storm itself had conspired to keep her from returning, to push her back onto the road she had taken years ago, when she fled this place. Élise cut the engine and let the silence inside the car settle over her. The vehicle rocked gently under the assault of the wind, parked at the edge of the coastal road. Her breath fogged the glass, making the outlines of the village beyond appear spectral, half-dreamt. Saint-Lazare. Eight years. Eight long years since she had last been here. She had told herself she would never return. That she could erase her roots as one erases chalk from a blackboard, that she could bury memories under the weight of distance and silence. And yet here it was: the harbor stones slick with rain, the slate rooftops bowed beneath the storm, the sharp tang of iodine and seaweed drifting even through the closed car. The past had a way of seeping through every barrier. She looked up at her own reflection in the rearview mirror. It startled her. The face that stared back was harsher, more tired than the one she carried in her mind. The faint hollows beneath her eyes had deepened into purplish shadows. A bitter line had carved itself at the corner of her lips. And her eyes—clear once, perhaps even hopeful—were dulled by too many sleepless nights, too many memories replayed like broken reels. She drew a deep breath, held it, let it go slowly. Still, her chest trembled. And then another face intruded upon her mind, as vivid as if he sat in the car beside her: a young man, barely twenty, pale and gaunt, his fingers gripping the edge of a metal chair. “I can’t do this anymore, Doctor.” His voice still echoed in her bones. She had leaned forward that day, searching for words, for a thread that might lead him back from the edge. She had promised herself there was still time. The next morning, the phone rang. A bridge. A body. A night too late. She closed her eyes against the sting. The aftermath had been merciless: the newspaper articles dissecting her failure, the hospital corridors humming with poisonous whispers, the disciplinary board convening with its cold, official language. One mistake—that was all it took to unravel the scaffolding of her career, her certainty, her identity. She pressed her forehead to the steering wheel, let the leather chill her skin. The pain had dulled with the years, but it had never left. It lived with her, like a scar that never truly faded. At last, with a mechanical motion, she reached for the door handle. The latch clicked, and the storm rushed in at once—icy wind, stinging rain, salt in the air. It slapped her face raw, woke her body with its cruelty. She pulled her coat tighter and stepped onto the cobbled road, which gleamed under the dim yellow lamps. The sea beyond was a restless animal, the boats in the harbor rocking violently as though they might snap their moorings at any second. Nets flapped, ropes creaked. Saint-Lazare, the place that had once been her refuge, now felt like the jaws of a trap. Her suitcase rattled behind her as she walked the narrow lanes. The sound seemed too loud in the sleeping village. Every window she passed was like an eye, each light behind the glass a silent witness. She didn’t need to hear the words—she could feel them already. Élise has returned. She’s back. When she reached the family house, her steps slowed until she stopped entirely. She stood before the gray façade, the shuttered windows, the moss-streaked roof. Nothing had changed since her mother’s death, except perhaps the weight of the air pressing against her chest. Her hand shook as she slid the key into the lock. The metal groaned as though protesting, and then, with a muffled crack, the door yielded. A breath of stale air met her face—dust, old laundry, wax long dried into silence. Inside, the house was a mausoleum. The walls were lined with pale rectangles where picture frames once hung, the ghosts of images now gone. The living room table, once cluttered with her mother’s trinkets—shells polished smooth, a cracked vase, the relentless ticking clock—stood naked and bare. She set her suitcase down in the hallway. Her eyes moved across the emptiness, searching for remnants, for proof that life had once pulsed here. Her fingers brushed the back of a chair, and suddenly she saw it again: Clara as a teenager, rolling her eyes with laughter, their mother leaning over a steaming pot of soup, the clatter of spoons, the warmth of ordinary life. All of it erased by time. By absence. By her absence. "I'm back," she whispered. The words were devoured by silence. Only the hollow echo of the house responded, as though the walls themselves doubted her return. The door shut behind her with a sharp sound, final and unwelcoming. It felt like the house was closing her in, testing whether it could still claim her as one of its own. Exhausted, she collapsed onto the threadbare sofa, her coat still dripping with rain. The silence wrapped around her, broken only by the steady patter of water against the windowpanes. And in that silence, she felt the truth settle into her bones: she was home, yes—but a stranger still, to this house, and to the world she once belonged to.