OLIVIA POV
Six years have passed.
Six beautiful, messy, surprising years that stitched themselves into a life I never thought I’d have. Sometimes I catch myself looking at us from the outside—our stone villa warmed by a morning sun that smells like rosemary and river air, the gentle clatter of a small kitchen where the moka sings on the stove, my man braiding our daughter’s hair—and I have to touch the wall, the table, my own heartbeat, just to believe it’s real.
Today is a first. First day of school for my son. My big boy. My storm and my softness wrapped together in a too-small uniform T-shirt he insisted he didn’t need to try on last night because “I grow when I sleep, Mama—it will be perfect in the morning.” He was right and wrong at the same time—right because it fits, wrong becaus
