Chapter 77 - Chapter 77: The Evening

Saturday arrived unannounced, as Saturdays do, carrying with it no meetings, no deadlines, no obligations. Aaron woke late to find the sun already high, the light falling across the bed in a warm rectangle, the space beside him empty. He lay still for a moment, not reaching for his phone, not checking the time, simply letting himself exist in the quiet of the morning. The sheets were cool where Sophie had been, and he could hear her moving somewhere in the house, the soft sounds of a Saturday morning unfolding without schedule or demand. The villa hummed around him — the distant clatter of a pan in the kitchen, the soft murmur of a radio tuned to a station that played jazz, the sound of Sophie's voice humming something he almost recognized, a melody that hovered at the edge of his awareness like a word on the tip of his tongue.