CHAPTER 117: VISIT

The morning light was soft but insistent as it streamed into the penthouse, curling into the corners of the bedroom and warming the cool sheets. Ella sat on the edge of the bed, dressed in jeans and a pale sweater Nicholas had bought her in Positano—light and warm, the color of sand. Her fingers moved absently over the hem as if it grounded her.

Behind her, the sheets were still tangled, the faint scent of him clinging to the linens. Nicholas was half-asleep, chest rising and falling in the heavy hush of early morning. One arm reached across the space she’d left, his hand resting palm-down in the dip her body had occupied minutes earlier.

"You sure you don’t want me to come with you?" he asked, voice rough with sleep.

Ella caught his reflection in the mirror. He looked beautiful in the way only people do when they let their guard down—hair tousled, eyes soft, bare skin kissed with the last remnants of sleep. She paused as she twisted her hair into a loose bun.

"Yeah," she said. "I think I need to go alone."

He didn’t argue. Just nodded slowly, propping himself on one elbow as his eyes searched hers. "Call me if you change your mind."

She crossed the room and kissed his forehead, letting her lips linger against the skin that always seemed warm. "I always know where to find you."

He caught her wrist gently before she could pull away and turned her hand over, pressing a slow kiss to her palm. Then he let go.

And she left.

—

The city was stirring when Ella arrived at the hospital. Traffic was light. A nurse with coffee in hand offered her a quiet nod as she passed the front desk. She hadn’t been here in weeks—not since before they left for Italy—and yet her feet knew the way without thinking. The sterile scent of antiseptic and warm fabric softener filled her lungs as she made her way down the corridor.

The halls were quiet. Not silent, but hushed—staff speaking in low voices, wheels of a cart humming softly along polished floors. That strange in-between hour where night wasn’t quite gone and morning hadn’t fully arrived.

Her mother’s room was at the far end of the corridor, just past a frosted glass door where the light spilled through like watercolor. Ella slowed when she reached it. The door was ajar. A familiar shaft of morning light stretched across the floor like an invitation.

She stood there for a long moment.

There were no visitors. No bustling conversations. Just the soft beep of machines, the whir of the ventilator. A steady rhythm that hadn’t changed.

When she stepped inside, the quiet became something almost sacred.

The room was exactly as she remembered it—cool, clean, and dim. A vase of wilted tulips sat on the windowsill, long past fresh. The blinds had been tilted halfway, letting the soft gold light stretch across the bed where her mother lay, her skin pale against the starched sheets.

She looked exactly the same.

Ella always expected something different. Some shift. A twitch. A stirring. But no—her mother lay in that same suspended stillness, frozen somewhere between memory and possibility.

Ella pulled the chair close to the bed and lowered herself into it with a quiet breath. She didn’t speak right away. Just sat, her eyes trailing over every detail of her mother’s face.

"Hi, Mom," she said at last. "I’m back."

Her voice felt small in the room, but not fragile. Steady. She folded her hands in her lap and let the silence answer her.

"I went to Italy," she said, watching the soft rise and fall of her mother’s chest. "With Nicholas."

She gave a faint smile. "He’s... everything you’d have told me I deserved. Maybe more than I thought I was allowed to have. He listens. He looks at me like he’s memorizing every breath I take, and he doesn’t flinch when I’m quiet or afraid."

She reached out and smoothed a stray lock of hair off her mother’s forehead. "You’d like him. He’s a little bit arrogant," she added with a small chuckle, "but only when it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t try to fix me. He just stays. Even when I don’t make it easy."

Ella exhaled softly, the breath leaving her like something old being shed.

"I used to come here and only talk about the hurt. I’d list the ways people left, or how tired I was of surviving. I thought if I said it all out loud, I’d stop carrying it."

She looked down at their hands—hers warm, her mother’s cool and still.

"But lately... I don’t know. Something’s changing. I’m starting to want things again. Not just peace. Not just quiet. But joy. Messy, terrifying, deep joy."

Her gaze shifted to a photograph pinned near the bed—one from a birthday long ago. They were both laughing, wind in their hair, the kind of happiness that came without effort.

"I want to be someone you’d be proud of," she whispered. "Not just because I got through hard things. But because I didn’t let them define me. Because I still opened up, even when I was scared."

She paused, swallowing past the lump in her throat. "I’m not angry with you. I think part of me was, for a long time. Not because you got sick. But because you disappeared before I got to say goodbye. And maybe... I didn’t know how to keep living without feeling like I owed it to the sadness."

She brushed a thumb across her mother’s knuckles. "But now I think... I can carry you without carrying the grief."

A long moment passed. Peaceful. Unburdened.

"I love you," she said softly, leaning down to press a kiss to her mother’s temple. "Always."

She stood slowly, adjusting the bedsheet, smoothing her mother’s hair the way she remembered her doing when she was young. She replaced the old vase with the new bouquet she’d brought—freesias this time. Gentle. Hopeful.

When she left the room, she didn’t rush. She didn’t look back.

—