London doesn’t feel foreign anymore.
It feels… lived in.
The townhouse in Islington creaks in the mornings. The pipes knock politely before the shower warms. The kitchen window catches afternoon light in a way that makes the wooden table glow honey-gold.
It’s not dramatic.
It’s not grand.
It’s just ours.
And that’s still a miracle.
Marcus is in the living room on a call with the London branch of the Valerio Foundation. His voice carries lightly down the hallway.
“No, we don’t scale the pilot until the retention data stabilizes… Yes. Depth first, then expansion.”
Depth first.
That phrase feels like the thesis of our entire life now.
I’m at my desk upstairs, revising a chapter of my book manuscript—yes, book manuscript—on “Chosen Family and Moral Agency in Nineteenth-Century Ficti
