Alexandre's POV
I had prepared the house.
Not obsessively — I preferred not to examine how close to obsessive it had actually been. But I had walked through it on Wednesday evening seeing it properly for the first time in four years. What I saw was: too large, too formal, too empty of anything that wasn't expensive or deliberate. A house that functioned as a display of success rather than a place where anything actually lived.
So I made adjustments.
Theo's room first. The one he had pointed at on Saturday with the immediate certainty of someone who had identified what they wanted and saw no reason to negotiate. Repainted in two days — navy blue, an ocean mural across the longest wall, a lighthouse, waves, a small wooden boat. A bed shaped like a ship because it existed and I was appare
