The mansion's great oak doors opened for Selin with all the warmth of a cold refuge. She had been discharged; her body was here, but her spirit remained tethered in the hospital room, in the incubator, at the tip of one small finger. Her arms were empty. For a mother, to return home with empty arms is the quietest and most violent storm there is.
Mert walked a step behind her, a silent shadow keeping watch. With every step she took he feared she might stumble, yet he did not dare take her arm. Since Fusun Hanim's passing the house had released the scent of a mother and replaced it with the cold smell of long grief.
The House's Silent Cry
Selin let herself down into the armchair in the sitting room. Her gaze moved over the photographs on the walls: Nuri Bey, and her mother Gönül Hanim in
