Chapter 91

Diego

I couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t for nights now. The walls of the house were too loud with silence, the shadows of guilt clinging to them like cobwebs that refused to be swept away. The weight of my own decisions had become heavy, too heavy for my shoulders to bear and even for my heart to carry.

I stood in front of the armoire, sleeves rolled up, a half-packed suitcase open on the bed behind me. I stared at the folded clothes without really seeing them, my fingers pressed into the wooden edge of the wardrobe like I could hold myself steady through it.

The shirts were Leo’s. Small, soft-collared, and still smelling faintly of lavender and clean soap. I folded another one carefully, pressing it down like ritual. A jacket next, then sneakers. My hands moved on their own while my thoughts drifted to another morning like this, years ago, with a different suitcase, a different kind of urgency—the day I packed for my wife’s last hospital stay.

I remembered h