Chapter 6
The Things We Don't Say
January arrived like a curtain being drawn back.
Sophia started painting again — something she hadn't done since before Daniel. Canvases began to appear around the apartment, leaning against walls, propped on windowsills. Ethan never commented on them, but she caught him looking, sometimes, with an expression she couldn't read.
"Which one's your favourite?" she asked one morning.
He turned. She was standing behind him, a coffee mug in both hands, nodding at the canvas on the easel.
He studied it for a moment — it was an abstract piece, blues and golds, lots of movement. "That one," he said, pointing to a smaller piece propped nearby, a landscape of a grey river under soft light.
She blinked. That one she'd painted the night they'd walked along the Thames.
"Why?" she asked softly.
"It feels like somewhere I'd want to stay."
She looked down at her coffee. Her heart was doing something she hadn't given it permission to do.