CHAPTER 001
1365 Words
꧁ Callista
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The flowers I brought were white.
Mama had always loved white flowers. They were always her favorite, especially white roses…because to her, white carried no pretense, no performance, just clean and quiet.
I crouched down and laid them against the headstone, smoothing the stems with my fingers the way I always did, like it was something I could actually do for her.
Renata Ashford. Beloved.
Ten years.
I exhaled slowly and sat back on my heels.
Ten years since, I stood in this same spot in a dress that was two sizes too big because nobody had thought to buy me something that fit.
Ten years since I lost my mum…and my whole life fell apart.
Ten years since I became a ghost in my own home.
Ten years of learning how to disappear into rooms, how to speak only when spoken to, how to swallow things whole.
I had gotten very good at swallowing things.
It hadn't always been that way.
Before Petra and Isolde arrived, I had been a child who laughed too loudly and asked too many questions and drove Mama crazy by following her from room to room just to keep talking. I had been someone's entire world once. I had been a pampered princess, adored completely by her mum and dad.
Then Daddy came home with a woman and a suitcase and a child that Mama's and everything rearranged itself overnight.
He never even tried to hide it.
That was the part that used to keep me up at night — the casualness of it. He didn't sneak around or apologize or lower his voice.
He never tried to hide his love for the mistress and illegitimate daughter he had boldly brought into his matrimonial home.
He simply preferred them.
He took Petra to dinners Mama had dressed up for.
He attended Isolde's school events and forgot mine existed.
He walked past Mama in the hallways of her own house like she was furniture he had stopped noticing.
He had simply tossed me and mama away…showering all his love and everything he had to his new family. Pushing us to the corners in our home, making us invisible and practically slaves.
And Mama — God, she loved him anyway. She loved him right up until she couldn't anymore.
Right up until she took her own life from the pain of it all.
I pressed my fingers lightly against the headstone.
"Rest, Mama," I whispered. "Wherever you are, just rest. You fought so hard for so long, and you deserved so much better than what they gave you. I know that now. I understood it even then — watching you fold yourself smaller and smaller just to make room for people who never deserved to be in your space."
I exhaled shakily.
"They made you feel like you were the problem. Like your pain was an inconvenience and your love was an inconvenience, yet you stayed. You still tried." My throat tightened. "I used to be angry at you for that. When I was younger I used to lie in bed thinking — why didn't you just take me and leave? Why did you keep staying for a man who had already left without walking out the door?"
I wiped my face quickly.
"I'm not angry anymore. I understand now what it means to love someone so completely that leaving feels like losing yourself. I understand more than I wish I did."
I paused, just breathing for a moment.
"But I need you to always be at peace wherever you are and not worry about me. I mean that. I have Stellan now, Mama. I have a man who chose me, who completely adores me and loves me. A man who makes me feel seen. I know how it started — I know he only really noticed me after Isolde's accident. But he loves me. He chose me. He put a ring on my finger and I wake up every morning next to someone who actually wants me there." I pressed my palm flat against the stone. "So please just rest. You gave me everything you could. I'm okay now. I promise I'm okay."
I heard footsteps behind me and turned.
Stellan was coming down the path toward me, hands in his coat pockets, a small apologetic smile already forming before he even reached me.
"Hello my love," he said, dropping beside me and pressing a kiss to my temple. "I am so sorry I’m late. The call ran longer than I expected. I tried to wrap it up as fast as I could."
"It's fine," I said. "You're here now, that is what matters.”
He looked at the headstone quietly for a moment.
Then he turned to me and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
"She would have liked you," I told him.
"Yeah?" His voice was soft.
"Yeah."
He kissed my cheek and stood, pulling me up with him. "Come on. Let's go home."
Home. I was still getting used to how easily that word came now.
The house was quiet when we got back.
Stellan had a call to return and disappeared into his study, and I drifted toward the kitchen the way I always did when I needed to keep my hands busy.
I was halfway through chopping vegetables when my phone buzzed on the counter.
Unknown number. I picked it up anyway.
"Callista!" The voice was warm and instantly familiar. Professor Hale — my art teacher from university, the woman who had spent three years, telling me I was wasting something rare. "I hope I'm not interrupting. I have news."
I set down the knife, "Professor Hale. It's been a while."
"It has. I'll get straight to it — Florian Vex's foundation has been tracking anonymous submissions for several months now. Yours came up." She paused. "Callista, they want you on their international creative team. Florian himself reviewed your work. This is not the kind of offer that comes twice."
I was quiet for a second.
Florian Vex.
The name alone made something stir in my chest — the part of me that had bled onto canvas in secret for years, the part I had carefully folded away since the wedding.
The best and most famous artist in the whole world.
"Professor Hale," I said gently. "I can't."
"Can't or won't?"
I almost smiled. She had always been direct. "I know how beautiful this offer is, and I do feel deeply honored that the opportunity is coming to me. But see…I'm married now. I want to focus on my family….on building my home…that is the only thing that matters to me now. The art was always just for me — it was never supposed to be anything more than that."
"Callista." Her voice was firm. "A gift like yours doesn't belong only to you."
"I know," I said quietly. "But this is where I need to be right now."
She was silent for a beat. Then — "The offer stands for thirty days. Think about it. Please."
We said our goodbyes. I set the phone down and stood there in the quiet kitchen for a moment, staring at nothing. Something small and stubborn tugged at a corner of my chest.
I ignored it. Picked up the knife. Got back to work.
The doorbell rang a few minutes later, and I looked up with a frown.
We were not expecting any visitors today, so who could it be?
I wiped my hands on a kitchen towel and headed for the door, pulling it open.
The sight of the person standing at the door, made my blood freeze to my bone.
No.
She looked different — older, polished, put together with the careful precision of someone who needed you to think they were fine. But I would have known her face in a blackout. I had grown up across the table from it. I had watched it receive everything I was denied for fifteen years.
Isolde.
She looked at me for a long moment, something unreadable moving behind her eyes. Then her lips curved into a slow, obviously malicious smile.
"Hello, Sister."
- Writer
