In Sicily, the month of September began with a mildness that clashed violently with the lingering tumult in Belinda's heart. After Azzurra's departure, the house seemed to have expanded, becoming a labyrinth of rooms too vast and silences too deep. Without the sound of her daughter's footsteps or the music of her dance exercises, every corner of the home seemed to whisper the name of the one who was gone.
Belinda and Elia spent their days immersed in the sludge of reconstruction. There was an almost desperate pragmatism in the way Elia handled the shovel or repaired the fixtures wrenched away by Hurricane Harry. The garden, once the pride of the villa, was now a graveyard of salt-scorched plants and shattered branches. Every time Elia lifted a slab of asphalt or cleared the silt that had flooded the basement, he seemed to be trying to scrape away the pain of losing Samuele as well; but the stain of mourning proved more stubborn than the mud of the Strait.
"We need to call the mason for the boundary wall, Elia. And the living room windows... they won't withstand another gust if we don't replace them entirely," Belinda would say, trying to anchor herself to the reality of physical damage to keep from sinking into the ruins of her soul.
"I know, Belinda. I know," he would reply, wiping sweat with his arm. "But it's a long process; the entire coast is on its knees. We must be grateful that Azzurra is in Richmond. At least she is safe, far from these ruins."
But Belinda, though she nodded, felt a void that no home renovation could ever fill. She missed Samuele as one misses air at a mountain's peak. She missed his sudden phone calls, his way of trivializing her esoteric fears with a medical quip, his solid and reassuring presence. She often found herself staring at her phone, waiting for a message she knew would never come, or gazing at the empty chair on the patio where Samuele and Andrea used to sit for Saturday evening drinks. The debt had been paid, yes, but the house had become an altar of absences.
That night, after an exhausting day spent separating unsalvageable furniture from what could be saved, Belinda fell into a deep, black sleep. Yet, it was not a sleep populated by shadows or sea demons.
She found herself walking on a beach she did not recognize. It was not the dark, volcanic sand of Messina, nor the pebbly shore of Calabria. It was an expanse of stardust, white and fine, which did not burn beneath her feet but emanated a gentle warmth, like a caress. The sea before her did not roar; it emitted a sound resembling a harp played underwater. The blue of the water was so clear that Belinda could see the bottom, where there were no monsters or shipwrecks, but only corals that glowed with their own light and pastel-colored fish dancing in perfect circles.
"It's beautiful here, isn't it?"
Belinda spun around. Samuele was there, sitting on a trunk of light wood smoothed by the waves. He wore a white linen shirt, and his eyes no longer bore the dark circles of exhaustion from his hospital shifts. He looked young, radiant, enveloped in an aura of peace that Belinda had never seen him wear in life.
"Samuele..." she murmured, feeling tears flow without pain. "Where are we? Is this what comes after?"
Samuele smiled and gestured for her to sit beside him. "This is the flip side of the coin, Belinda. It's the piece of the world you cannot see when the storm blinds you. There is always a place where the light never goes out, where debt does not exist because the gift is the only currency."
He pointed toward the horizon. There, where the sea met the sky, Belinda saw a city of glass and silk—a metropolis of light that seemed to float upon the clouds. There was no trace of pollution, anger, or ancient curses. There was only a pervasive joy, a sense of total belonging.
"Belinda, do not be afraid to fix the broken glass or to weep for me," Samuele said, taking her hand. His grip was solid, real. "But do not forget that Azzurra is in London to bring a bit of this light to where the mist reigns. Your fear is her chain; your hope is her flight. Look beyond the mud of your villa. Look at what we are building here."
In that moment, Belinda saw Azzurra. In the dream, her daughter danced upon the surface of the water; her feet did not sink but instead created ripples of emerald light. Beside her was Erica, who was not plotting in the shadows but holding her hand, guiding her toward that city of glass.
"Life must go on, my friend," Samuele concluded, standing up. "Because every step you take in joy, even if it costs effort, cleanses a piece of the Strait. I'll be waiting for you here, Belinda. But do not be in a hurry. There is still so much beauty left to defend down there."
Belinda woke at dawn, her face wet with tears but her heart incredibly light. The sun was rising behind the Calabrian coast, tinting the Strait with a gold that had nothing to do with curses and everything to do with the promise of creation.
She got up, went to the kitchen, and prepared coffee. When Elia came down, he found her staring at the devastated garden with a weary look. Belinda approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Today we start with the roses, Elia," she said, with a voice he hadn't heard in a long time. "Samuele says we have to make room for the new. And if he says so, we must trust him."
Elia looked at her, surprised by this new determination. He did not know of the dream, but he saw a spark in his wife's eyes that the hurricane had failed to extinguish. The physical reconstruction was still long, and the scars of Samuele would remain forever, but for the first time, Belinda no longer looked at London as a scaffold, but as the place where Azzurra would finally learn to walk upon the light.