THE SPACE BETWEEN US.

Echoes in the Studio

The scent of my mother's workshop was supposed to be metal and citrus polish. Today it was lilies. Funeral lilies, stacked in white buckets by the door because nobody knew what else to do with them, choking out the smell of the woman who used to stand at this bench.

Three days. That's all it had been since we buried her.

I picked up an unfinished bracelet, half soldered, a row of moonstones waiting for settings that would never come. My hands shook so hard the metal clicked against the table.

"Mia." My father's voice came from the doorway, too bright, too rehearsed. "I need you downstairs."

I set the bracelet down like it was made of glass. "Dad, I'm not really in the mood for a family meeting right now."

"This isn't optional."

Something in his tone made my stomach drop before I even reached the staircase.

They were standing in the foyer like they belonged there. A woman with a smile too polished for a house still in mourning, and a girl about my age hovering behind her, dragging a suitcase that looked brand new.

"Mia, sweetheart," the woman said, opening her arms like we were old friends.

I froze on the bottom step. "Corinne?"

My mother's best friend. The woman who sat beside her hospital bed for the last two months, who cried at the funeral louder than I did.

"Dad, what is this?"

He wouldn't look at me. "Corinne and Sienna are going to be staying with us. Living with us."

"Living with us," I repeated, the words tasting like poison. "It's been three days."

"I know the timing seems sudden."

"Sudden isn't the word I'd use."

Corinne stepped forward, touching my arm like she had any right to. "I loved your mother, Mia. I know this is hard to understand right now, but I'm not here to replace her. I'm here because your father needs support, and so does this family."

I pulled my arm back. "My family doesn't need you."

"Mia." My father's voice sharpened. "Enough."

I found Julian in the sitting room an hour later, curled into the corner of the couch with Corinne perched beside him, her hand resting on his back like she'd done it a hundred times before.

"She used to tell me things your mom said about me," Julian told me later that night, eyes red rimmed, voice cracking with a kind of hope I hadn't seen in him since the diagnosis. "Stuff I never knew. She remembers everything, Mia. It's like having a piece of Mom back."

"She's using you," I said. "Can't you see that?"

"She's the only one in this house who talks to me like Mom used to."

"Because she studied Mom for years, Julian. She knows exactly what to say."

His face twisted. "Don't do that. Don't make her into some villain because you're jealous."

"Jealous?" My voice cracked. "She's been in this house for six hours."

"She's been here for me," he shot back, standing up so fast the couch cushion slid. "Where were you, Mia? Off at your internship, off with your friends, while I was the one sitting with Mom every single day. Corinne was there too. You weren't."

The words hit harder than I expected, because some part of them was true, and grief doesn't care about fairness.

"Julian, please."

"You were never really family, Mia," he said, quiet now, which somehow made it worse. "Not like this. Sienna's already closer to Dad in one afternoon than you've been in years. Maybe she's the daughter he actually wants."

The room went silent except for the sound of my own heartbeat slamming in my ears.

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

He walked past me toward the stairs, toward her, and I stood there in the house I grew up in, watching my brother disappear into a stranger's orbit like I'd already become the ghost in my own home.

Three days ago I buried my mother.

Tonight, I was losing everyone else too.

I retreated back up the stairs to the only room where I felt safe, pushing open the heavy wooden door to my mother's workshop. But the peace was already gone. Corinne stood by the worktable, running her fingers over my mother's velvet jewelry trays, holding up a pair of custom gold earrings to the dim light.

"What are you doing in here?" My voice came out sharp, cutting through the quiet room.

Corinne didn't flinch. She turned slowly, setting the earrings down on the bench with a soft clatter. "Just taking inventory, Mia. Your father asked me to help clear out some of Eleanor's personal effects tomorrow. We need to make space."

"You don't touch anything in this room," I said, stepping between her and the bench, my hands clenching into tight fists at my sides. "This is her studio. Her work."

Corinne looked at me with a soft, pitying look that made my skin crawl. "Your mother isn't coming back, Mia. Holding on to every scrap of paper and every piece of wire isn't going to change that. Your father is trying to move forward, and you dragging your feet is only making it harder on Julian."

She ran a finger over the corner of my mother's worn leather sketchbook before looking up at me again.

"Get some rest," she added softly, stepping past me into the dark hallway. "Things are going to look very different around here from now on."