Six weeks into the rebuild, Théo comes to the compound for the first time.
Not for a night, for a weekend. Celeste drives him herself, stays at a hotel in Varenholm, and leaves him the north wing room with the window that opens from the inside.
He arrives Friday evening carrying a backpack, three notebooks, and the barely contained excitement of a boy who has spent six weeks hearing about a place and finally gets to stand inside it.
He stops in the courtyard and studies the east wing scaffolding, the exposed bones of the structure glowing gold in the evening light.
"It is bigger than I thought," he says.
"It is medium-sized," I say.
"I meant symbolically."
I look at him.
He looks back with that careful seriousness he carries naturally — the same seriousness that disappears briefly
