Chapter 5
RETH
Flashback
My father used to say you could tell everything about a person by the way they kept their home.
Cluttered meant they were still deciding who they were. Bare meant they were afraid to commit. But a home that looked lived-in and loved—that was a person who knew what mattered.
I think about that when the car pulls through the iron gates.
The house is enormous. Pale stone, tall windows, a garden that wraps around the front like it grew there on purpose, like the house and the earth had made some private agreement long before we showed up.
It’s beautiful the way things in storybooks are beautiful—a little unreal, a little too perfect.
The kind of beautiful that makes you feel like you’re not supposed to touch anything.
Mary’s face is pressed to the car window, leaving foggy little circles with every quick breath.
She hasn’t spoken in ten minutes, which is wrong. Mary talks the way other people breathe—constantly, automatically. But the second we turned off the main road, she went still. Now she’s just staring, eyes wide, like she’s afraid the house might disappear if she blinks.
“Nazareth,” she whispers without turning her head.
“I see it.”
She finally looks at me, eyes so big they take up half her face. “Are we actually going to live here?”
“That’s the plan.”
She glances back at the house, then at me again, like she can’t decide which one is real.
The car stops. Patricia, our social worker, climbs out first, clipboard in hand, lavender perfume drifting back into the car like always. She says something about gathering our things, but I barely hear her.
I have one backpack. Mary has one backpack and George—her stuffed rabbit that’s missing one eye and has been washed so many times he’s faded from brown to a sad, patchy gray.
She tucks him tight under her arm the way she does when she’s scared.
I take her free hand. She squeezes back hard, like my hand is the only solid thing left in the world.
We walk up the wide stone steps just as the front door swings open.
“You’re finally here!”
“Children,” Patricia starts. “This is Mrs. Capello.”
“Oh, no. None of that. Call me Valeria.”
She’s beautiful. Probably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Dark hair swept back from a face that looks like it belongs in magazines, not doorways. Cream dress. Pearls at her throat.
She smiles the second she sees us—warm, bright, immediate—and crouches down so she’s eye-level with Mary.
“You must be Mary,” she says softly, like the name itself is something precious. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Mary goes very still, the way she does when something surprises her completely. Then her grip on my hand loosens, just a little. Her whole body leans forward, almost without meaning to, like a flower turning toward the sun.
The woman straightens and looks at me next.
“Oh… wow.” She reaches out and takes my chin between her fingers. Not rough. Gentle, actually. The way you’d hold something fragile you wanted to see better. She tilts my face up slightly, studying me with dark eyes that feel like they’re looking straight through my skin.
“What a beautiful young boy you are, Nazareth.” She says my name like she already owns it. Like she practiced it in the mirror until it sounded right. “You’re going to be a killer with the ladies one day.”
I don’t say anything. There’s a feeling in my throat I can’t name—not exactly fear, but something close. Like the room is a degree too warm and no one else seems to notice.
Mary looks up at me, eyes shining, already half in love with this woman and this house and everything it promises.
I squeeze her hand tighter.
I don’t know why, but I don’t want her to let go.
“Come.” Valeria ushers us in. “Let’s give you the tour, then after lunch you can spend the entire afternoon by the pool.”
“You have a pool?” Mary’s eyes widen.
“We do.” Valeria leans close, holding her hand by her mouth like she’s sharing a secret. “And it’s a big one, too.”
“Yay! Nazareth, did you hear that? They have a big pool.”
“Yeah.” I smile, feeling that pang of excitement myself.
The tour of the massive house takes an hour. Maybe ten. It feels like twenty.
I expected Patricia to do it—clipboard voice, laminated packet, all the official language.
But Valeria dismisses her with a small, gracious nod and takes us herself, walking through the house at a pace slow enough for Mary's legs, pointing things out the way you point out things you love to people you want to share them with.
The library. The sunroom. The kitchen, which is bigger than our house was.
The garden door that opens directly onto a stone path and the smell of something green and alive.
She has a way of talking that makes everything feel intentional without feeling formal—like she chose every word, but none of them cost her anything.
And she’s right. The pool is huge.
We pass a big painting in the hallway, gold-framed, a woman in a blue dress standing at a window.
“Who is that?” Mary asks, leaning her head to the side as she stares at it.
“Her name was Isolde.” Valeria slides in next to Mary. “She was a woman who loved someone very much and was very brave about it.”
“Did she get a happy ending?”
Valeria tilts her head. Something moves across her face that I can't read yet. “Some stories don't have endings,” she says. “They just keep going.”
Mary considers this with the seriousness she applies to most things. Then she nods, satisfied, and takes my hand again, and we keep walking.
When we finish the loop of the downstairs—past the breakfast nook with its wall of shining windows and the living room with couches so soft it seemed immoral to sit on them—Valeria leads us up the stairs, hand gliding over the wood banister as if she wanted to gather every bit of this house into herself.
We reach a room at the end of the hallway of the second floor. “Mary, this is your bedroom. I do hope you like the color. I changed it three times because I just wasn’t sure which one you’d like.”
Valeria opens the door, and I’m sure I hear my little sister’s jaw hit the floor as she steps inside.
Me? I’m scowling because it’s…well, pink.
A lot of pink. Not the sharp, cheap pink of the group home bathroom, but something deeper and softer, like the inside of a flower.
There are fairy lights strung along the headboard.
A window seat with a cushion in a pattern of small white stars.
A shelf already lined with books, their spines arranged by color.
A little desk by the window with a lamp that casts a warm circle of gold.
Mary stops in the middle of the room and stands there for a long moment, very still, George pressed to her chest. Then she turns in a slow circle, taking it in from every angle, like she's trying to memorize it before it disappears.
I know that feeling. I recognize it. We've both been doing that since our parents died—memorizing good things while they're still here, because we understand now that good things don't always stay.
“Nazareth.” She breathes it, barely audible.
“Yeah,” I say, stepping in beside her.
“It's mine?”
I take her hand. “It's yours.”
She turns to Valeria, who has been standing quietly in the doorway behind me. “Did you really paint it three colors?”
Valeria smiles. “Four, actually. The first one was too bright. The second was too gray. The third was close but not quite right.” She tilts her head. “This one's called antique rose. I thought it suited you.”
Mary looks like she might cry. She doesn't—she bites the inside of her cheek the way she does when she's trying to hold something in—but her eyes go very bright, and she presses George a little harder against her ribs.
I watch her standing in that room, under those fairy lights, with the window seat and the star-patterned cushion and the books lined up like a promise, and something inside me settles.
I’ve been so worried about her ever since a car accident took our parents from us, so worried she’ll never be happy again.
But right now, she looks pretty darn happy. And when she’s happy, I’m happy.
Footsteps come down the hall, and a boy appears. Maybe half an inch shorter, dark-eyed and lean, hands shoved in his pockets. He slows when he sees us but doesn't stop, like he'd clocked us from ten feet away and already decided how he felt about it.
“Samuel.” Valeria's voice shifts slightly—lighter, more careful than it's been all afternoon. “Come meet Nazareth and Mary.” She places a gentle hand on his shoulder. “This is Samuel, my son. He’s your age, Nazareth.”
There it is again, that weird feeling when she says my name.
I step up to shake his hand. Dad always said you make a good impression with a firm handshake. Samuel’s handshake is quick, dry, surprised. For a second, I think he might actually say something, but he just gives a half-smirk, shrugs, and lets his hand fall away.
Then I notice Mary.
She's gone completely still, George forgotten at her side, and she's staring at Samuel with her whole face—not the way she stared at Mrs. Capello, that full-body wonder, that tipping-toward-light.
This is different. Quieter. She's just looking at him the way she sometimes looks at things she doesn't have words for yet.
Samuel glances at her. Mary immediately looks at the floor.
“Hey,” he says, to both of us, or neither of us.
“Hey,” she mumbles under her breath.
Valeria looks at the three of us and beams, as if the scene she’s been rehearsing in her head has unfolded perfectly.
“Nazareth, let’s give Mary some time to settle in. I’ll show you your bedroom.”
I glance at Mary, and she’s still avoiding looking in Samuel’s direction. “You gonna be okay?” I ask.
She nods lightly, biting the corner of her bottom lip.
“I won’t be far,” I assure her, and then follow Valeria out into the hall.