Chapter 3
ELLA
Morning arrived slowly, light easing through the thin curtains instead of barging in the way it did back home. For a few seconds, half-awake, I forgot where I was. The ceiling above me was unfamiliar, pale and slightly cracked near the corner. The room smelled faintly of soap and old wood.
Then memory slid into place.
Paris.
Rose.
The apartment.
I lay still, staring upward, letting the reality settle without fighting it. Grief felt different in daylight. Less sharp, more pervasive. A dull ache instead of a blade. Something you could almost pretend wasn’t there until you moved wrong and it flared again.
Outside, the city was already awake. Voices drifted up from the street. A scooter whined past. Someone laughed, loud and unselfconscious. Life moving forward, whether I caught up or not.
I rolled onto my side and reached for my phone.
Three messages from friends in New York. One from my editor, reminding me gently about a freelance deadline I still technically had. And a missed call from my mother sometime after midnight, which would have been early evening back home.
I winced.
They’d been worried about me traveling alone, even though I’d insisted I needed to do this. Needed to see where Rose had been living, needed to untangle the practical mess she’d left behind. And, though I hadn’t said it out loud, needed to understand why she’d kept so much of it hidden.
I pushed myself upright and swung my feet to the floor, grabbing the sweater I’d dropped over a chair the night before. The apartment felt different in morning light. Less haunted. Just … lived in.
I made coffee with Rose’s small machine, leaning against the counter while it sputtered awake. Steam fogged the window over the sink, and for a moment I imagined her standing here, half-dressed, answering emails before rushing out the door. Ordinary mornings I’d never known she was having.
My chest tightened.
I picked up my phone and called home.
It rang twice before my mother answered.
“Ella?” Relief flooded her voice instantly. “Honey, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Mom. I made it in last night. Everything’s okay.”
“Oh, thank God.” A muffled sound as she shifted the phone. “Charles, it’s Ella.”
I smiled faintly at the familiar use of my father’s first name. My parents had always done that, like they were still dating instead of having been married for thirty-five years.
My father’s voice came on a second later, warm but tired. “You got there safely?”
“I did. Apartment’s … nice. Comfortable.” I hesitated. “Rose picked well.”
Silence settled for a beat. Not awkward. Just heavy.
My mother filled it. “How are you feeling?”
“Jet-lagged,” I said lightly, though we all knew that wasn’t what she meant. “But ready. I’m going to start figuring things out today. Her accounts, the lease, all that.”
My father exhaled quietly. “Good. That’s good.”
I stared at the mug in my hands, thinking of the man’s jacket still hanging in the bedroom. The second toothbrush. The mug that didn’t match.
I didn’t mention any of it.
Not yet.
My parents were already drowning in loss. Dropping the revelation that Rose had built a second life here—one that didn’t include Randy—felt cruel without understanding the full picture first.
I’d keep that to myself until I knew more.
“How’s Randy?” I asked.
Another pause.
“Not good,” my mother said softly. “He’s … beside himself. Keeps saying he should’ve been there. That if he’d gone with her …”
My father cut in gently. “He’s grateful you’re handling things there so he doesn’t have to travel right now.”
Of course, he was. Randy had loved Rose. In his steady, uncomplicated way, he’d loved her completely. The idea of him walking into this apartment and seeing evidence of another man—of another life—made something twist painfully in my chest.
“I’ll take care of it,” I said. “He shouldn’t have to deal with all of this.”
“That’s very kind,” my mother said.
Kind. Responsible. The reliable daughter.
I’d worn that role most of my life.
My father cleared his throat. “Paris treating you all right?”
“It’s … different.” I hesitated, then decided to push. “Dad, did you ever keep in touch with anyone here? Family, I mean.”
Silence. Longer this time.
My mother sighed softly, a warning.
“You don’t need to worry about that,” my father said, tone tightening just enough for me to notice. “There’s no one you’d want to see.”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means it’s old history.”
“You grew up here.”
“And I left,” he replied shortly. “That was a long time ago.”
I pressed. “There’s no one? Cousins? An aunt? Anyone?”
A pause, then, reluctantly, “Trust me, Ella. You don’t need to go digging around.”
Which, of course, guaranteed I would.
My mother jumped back in, voice gentle but firm. “Sweetheart, your father’s already in enough pain. Losing Rose …” Her voice wavered. “Let the past stay where it belongs.”
Guilt pricked at me immediately.
They were good parents. Protective, attentive, present in all the ways that mattered. Even if they’d always leaned toward caution. Stability. Safe choices.
My father in banking, methodical and disciplined. My mother selling Manhattan apartments with relentless optimism and ironclad practicality. They’d built a good life, one built on careful decisions and minimal risk.
They’d taught us to do the same.
Choose stability. Choose safety. Don’t rock the boat.
Rose and I had listened.
Until Rose hadn’t.
“We’ll talk later,” I said gently. “I’m going to head out soon. Start … looking around.”
“Call us again soon,” my mother said quickly.
“I will.”
We exchanged goodbyes, and the line went dead.
I stared at my phone for a long moment before setting it down.
Good parents. Slightly odd. Deeply loving. And maybe a little afraid of the parts of life you couldn’t control.
Maybe Rose and I had inherited that fear—and learned too late how suffocating it could become.
I wondered what might have happened if she’d been braver in the ways that mattered.
If she’d sat across from Randy at their kitchen table and told him the truth instead of protecting him from it.
Told him she wasn’t unhappy exactly—but she wasn’t fulfilled either.
That safety had begun to feel like a cage.
That something in her had woken up and refused to go back to sleep.
If that was, in fact, what had happened.
Randy would have been devastated. I knew that. He would have tried to fix it, to adjust, to become whatever he thought she needed. He would have asked for time, for patience, for another chance to make the life they’d built feel right again.
And maybe that would have been kinder than disappearing into a second life across an ocean.
Or maybe it would have been unbearable.
Some truths didn’t survive daylight. Some desires shriveled when forced to justify themselves. I could imagine Rose knowing that—knowing that whatever had found her here in Paris only worked in secrecy, only stayed alive because it wasn’t asked to explain itself.
I hated that she’d felt trapped between hurting Randy and denying herself something that made her feel whole.
Hated that she’d chosen silence instead of honesty.
But standing there now, I couldn’t pretend I didn’t understand the impulse.
Courage wasn’t just about telling the truth.
Sometimes it was about admitting you wanted something you couldn’t make sense of yet.
I finished my coffee, showered quickly, and dressed with more intention than necessary: dark jeans, boots, a soft sweater, coat thrown over the top. Armor disguised as normalcy.
On Rose’s dresser, the small pile of things I’d noticed the night before waited. Receipts. A metro ticket. And two ticket stubs to a theater across town.
I picked them up again.
Why had she kept them?
On impulse, I slipped them into my pocket.
An hour later, I stepped back onto the street. Morning sunlight painted the buildings gold, the air crisp enough to sting my lungs. People moved with purpose—commuters, delivery drivers, couples arguing softly over directions.
Paris felt … promising.
Which felt almost obscene, given why I was here.
The theater turned out to be tucked along a quieter street, its facade elegant but understated. Posters advertised upcoming productions I couldn’t read quickly enough to understand. The doors were locked, the lobby dark.
Of course. Too early.
Still, curiosity pulled me closer. I peered through the glass, catching glimpses of velvet seats and gilded trim. Something intimate about the space tugged at me.
A side door creaked open behind me.
I jumped, spinning.
A woman in her fifties stepped out, broom in hand, eyeing me curiously. She said something in rapid French.
I caught every third word—enough to follow the question, not enough to answer it cleanly.
I’d been allowed to learn French as a child, but never encouraged to keep it.
My father had always insisted we were American first. Speak English, he’d say, like the language itself was a line you crossed and never came back from.
“Sorry,” I said, switching languages anyway, my accent soft but serviceable. “I’m not here for a show. My sister … she used to come here.”
Recognition flickered. “Ah. Many people come,” the woman replied, her accent thick. “Good performances.”
I hesitated, then showed her the tickets. “She kept these.”
The woman studied them, then smiled faintly. “Romantic play. Very popular.”
Romantic.
Of course.
I thanked her and stepped back, letting the door close behind her.
Rose had sat here. Maybe with him. Laughing, crying, holding someone’s hand in the dark while actors pretended at love and heartbreak on stage.
The thought didn’t hurt the way it might have yesterday.
Instead, something warmer settled in my chest.
Hope.
Which was absurd, really. My sister was dead. I was alone in a foreign city, picking through the remnants of her secrets. And yet, walking back toward the metro, I felt strangely open.
Like something was waiting.
My mind drifted toward the idea of desire—real desire. Not the polite intimacy Hank and I had fallen into, predictable and careful. But something messier. Hungrier. The kind of attraction that made your body wake up before your brain caught up.
Had Rose found that?
I flushed, remembering the rare nights I’d caught glimpses of that feeling in strangers’ eyes across crowded bars. The subtle heat low in my stomach, the pulse of interest quickly dismissed as impractical.
Safe choices didn’t include reckless attraction.
Maybe that was the problem.
Maybe Rose had found someone who made her feel alive. Desired. Seen. Maybe she’d stepped outside the lines because something—or someone—had called to parts of her she’d kept quiet too long.
The thought was intriguing, to say the least.
Maybe, somehow, she was leading me here.
Toward something better.
I paused on the sidewalk, watching sunlight flash off passing cars, and let the idea settle.
Grief and hope, side by side. Strange companions, but both undeniably real.
“Okay,” I murmured, to the city or my sister or myself. “I’m paying attention.”
Paris didn’t answer.
But for whatever reason, I felt like I was moving toward something instead of away from it.
And that felt dangerously close to excitement.
I didn’t go back to the apartment right away.
There would be time for the difficult things—the paperwork, the officials, the questions. The phone calls I was already dreading. The parts of Rose’s life that would need to be cataloged, explained, possibly defended.
But not yet.
First, I wanted to see her Paris the way she must have seen it when she wasn’t running or hiding—only choosing.
The cafés she lingered in. The streets she walked without a deadline pressing at her back.
The places that had made her stay longer than planned, come back again, keep secrets she hadn’t known how to name.
Hopeful things first, I decided.
Let the city show me who she’d been here before I asked it how she’d died.