Chapter SOPHIA
We’ve just finished eating when Raffael sets down his fork and leans back in his chair. "I have to leave for a while."
The words are simple, but there’s something in the way he says them and watches me that makes my pulse skip. He doesn’t tell me where he’s going, but I know. I can see it in the shadow that settles behind his eyes.
Roberto.
The thought makes my chest tighten, a tangle of emotions I can’t pick apart.
Part of me wants him to suffer, to scream, to know what it’s like to be powerless.
That part wants to beg Raffael to take me with him.
To let me watch. Another part of me just wants it over—no more waiting.
No more uncertainty. No more wondering what Raffael is doing in the dark hours I don’t see.
Before he can stand, the guilt hits me like a punch to the ribs. I’ve been so consumed by my own head, my own pain, that I haven’t thought about… "Marcello," I blurt out. My voice sounds small, almost ashamed. "Is he—?"
"He’s good," he assures me. "He's out of the hospital."
I knew that, I think. Everything is a haze, but yeah, I called him. No, I texted him; he called me. In LA before… before… I can feel the blood rushing through my veins, hear it pounding in my ears, and my body begins to feel light and floaty.
Raffael, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a phone, brings me back from the brink of jumping into the abyss. "You can call him."
The rushing retreats, my heartbeat normalizes, and things turn back into focus. I look at the phone, like it's an alien object. I don’t take it right away. "I… I don’t want to bother him—"
"You wouldn’t be." His voice is softer now, but steady. "And you may call him whenever you’d like. You’re not a prisoner here, Sophia. You’re my guest. For as long as you like."
The words settle in my chest in a way I don’t know how to explain. Guest. Not captive. Not property. Guest.
I finally take the phone, the weight of it is warm in my hand. Raffael lingers for a moment longer, his eyes searching mine like he wants to say something else, but then he just nods once and walks out.
The phone is heavy in my hands. A tear slides down my cheek.
I want to call Marcello, I really do, but I can already feel the panic sliding up inside me, choking my throat.
I can't talk to him when I'm like this. What would I say, anyway?
Come get me? I don't even know where I am. Do I want to leave?
The simple act of deciding to call my brother seems like a humongous chore.
Without meaning to, I'm walking forward. Drawn down the long corridor that Raffael told me about. The one with the mother-in-law suite at the back. Where the therapist is staying. Esther something.
In front of the door, I hesitate. Do I want to go in? What will I say?
A therapist.
I've never talked to a therapist before.
That's not something that is done in our family.
My fingers curl around the phone like I'm holding a live grenade and am trying to keep it from exploding, while my other hand rises.
I watch it rise. Turn into a fist. I'm watching like somebody else is pulling the strings of my body.
Knock.
I shrink back, even though it was so quiet that I doubt anybody heard it. I barely heard it.
"Come in." A woman's voice betrays my assumption of the knock having been too quiet. She must have been listening for it.
Well, here goes nothing. I push open the door and find her sitting on a sofa, a tea set in front of her as if she'd been expecting me. She must be in her mid-fifties; her brown hair is pulled into a loose bun.
“Hi,” I croak. I give the door a gentle nudge, and it closes behind me, soft as a whisper.
“Hi. I’m Esther. You must be Sophia.” She stands before I can sit, and there’s no ceremony—only the gentle way of someone who knows how fragile people are. “Come.”
The emptiness I brought into the room trembles. I open my mouth and close it again. “I—” The sentence collapses. Tears surprise me, hot and immediate. I try to blink them back, but they come anyway. Shame arrives with them like a second voice, saying I should have been stronger.
Esther’s face doesn’t flinch; it softens.
She crosses the small space and, without fussing, draws me into an embrace that is simple and steady.
Her arms are warm; they hold me like a harbor.
I bury my face into her shoulder, and the sob that was trying to split me comes out ragged and small. I'm not sorry for it.
“It’s okay,” she murmurs into my hair. “You’re safe here, Sophia.”
When the first rush subsides and the rivers slow to a trickle, she takes a step back and sits by the small window. “Would you like some tea? Green? Ginger?” Her voice is both professional and human, a mother and clinician braided together.
“Green,” I whisper. My voice is thin, but I want it to be real.
She hands me a cup like handing over a lifeline. I clutch it, the warmth steadying a place inside that’s been hollow. She watches, attentive without prying. “Do you want to tell me why you came?” she asks gently. Not a demand. A doorway.
I try to find the words, but the images don’t line up. So instead, I say the smallest truth. “I… I can’t call my brother. I can’t call Marcello. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know if I should leave. I thought—” I stop.
“You’re allowed to be confused,” she says. “You’re allowed to be scared. Those are normal responses to what you survived.” There’s no pity in her voice, only a steady, almost matter-of-fact kindness. Her hands fold around her mug as if she’s anchoring herself before guiding me.
She doesn’t push. Instead, she asks the thing therapists teach first, “Do you feel safe right now, in this room?”
The question is small and concrete. I look around. The curtains are drawn, and there is a lock on the door, but it's not locked. I clench the mug and answer, “A little.”
“Good,” she says. “We start there.” She leans forward.
“Before we ever touch the difficult parts, I want to teach you two things you can use the moment your body decides to panic. They aren’t magic.
They’re tools that give your nervous system something to do other than fight or drown.
” She smiles, it's warm, the kind of smile that does not erase pain but says it understands.
“You know the breathing and the grounding?” she asks.
I blink. “Yes. Box breath. Five things you can see, four you can touch…” The words come out small, as if I'm listing them off for the first time. They’re practiced. I’ve used them in bathrooms, in corners, in the dark. They get me back from falling apart enough to breathe.
“Good.” Her mouth tilts in a clean, almost relieved smile. “That’s a lot of progress, Sophia. It means your nervous system has already learned some routes back to safety. That’s huge.”
Relief hits me so quick it surprises me, not because she said it, but because someone else noticed.
I suck in a breath, steadier than before.
She moves to a low table and opens a small wooden box.
Inside is a smooth, palm-sized river stone and a thin, braided bracelet, nothing flashy, just cotton thread in muted colors.
She places the stone in my hand like an offering.
“This is for the next step,” she says. “You do the breathing and the five senses when things spike. This is different. It’s called a safe-place anchor.” She sits down opposite me, and her voice gets the gentle cadence of someone teaching a child to swim. “Close your eyes if you want.”
I close them. The room narrows to the sound of her chair creaking and my own breath.
“Think of a place—real or imagined—where you feel entirely, thoroughly safe,” she says. “Not a memory of safety. A place you can go in your mind that has no threat in it. Describe it. Smell it. Who’s there? What does the sky feel like? Don’t rush it.”
I picture a lake, not a place where I have physically been, but one I have visited in books and dreams. The air is cold and sharp, the water glass-smooth, and the light is late afternoon gold.
There’s no husband there. No suits, no phone calls.
Just the sound of a bird, the distant creak of a dock.
My chest loosens around the image like a hand uncoiling.
“Good,” Esther murmurs. “Now press the stone in your hand. Feel the weight. Notice the texture.” I do.
The stone is cool and oddly grounding, a solid fact between my fingers.
“Keep your eyes closed and name three things you notice about the stone—color, temperature, weight. Let the safe place and the stone pair together in your mind. When you’re overwhelmed, you can hold this stone and call that place.
Your body will get the message: we are safe. ”
She pauses, letting the instruction settle.
“This is part visualization, part tactile cue,” she explains.
“It’s simple, but it gives the brain two anchors: a mental scene and a physical sensation.
Practice it when you’re calm, two minutes in the morning, two at night.
The more you pair them, the faster your system learns the route back. ”
I feel silly and childish, but something about the stone in my palm steadies me. I practice the pair once, twice, and the lake comes to me with the clarity of a photograph. When I open my eyes, the world looks less like an ambush.
Esther leans forward. “Also—body scan. From your toes to the top of your head, notice where you’re carrying tension. Don’t judge it—just notice. Breathe into the tight places and let them relax a degree. Do it before you go to sleep and when you wake; it slows the alarm.”
She writes a short list on a sticky note—box breath, five senses, safe-place + stone, brief body scan—and hands it to me. “Keep it on your mirror. Small, repeatable things. They’re not cures. They’re tools. Tools make work possible.”