Serafina
“Watch this,” Aurelia shouts, already sprinting before anyone agrees to look.
“Wait,” Leonel calls after her, exasperated and breathless. “You can’t just change the rules mid-game. That defeats the point of having rules at all.”
Aurelia doesn’t slow down. She leaps over the uneven line of stones Leonel laid out, lands badly, scrapes her knee, and pops right back up with a grin sharp enough to challenge the sky itself. “I didn’t change the rules,” she argues. “I improved them.”
Leonel groans, dropping his sticks. “That doesn’t count as flying.”
“It does if you don’t stop,” she yells back, already running another wild arc around him.
I laugh before I can stop myself, the sound startling in its ease. It isn’t restrained or cautious. It just exists. I lean back on the low stone wall at the edge of the garden and let my eyes follow them without scanning for danger, without bracing for interruption.
Leonel notices me watching and lifts his crooked creation toward me like an offering. “Mom,” he asks, hopeful and precise, “is this straight?”
I study it seriously, tilting my head as if assessing architectural merit instead of a bundle of sticks held together by stubborn faith. “It’s perfect,” I tell him.
His shoulders lift, proud and relieved. “I knew it,” he mutters, mostly to himself.
Aurelia skids to a stop in front of me, sticky hands immediately pressing into my dress as she climbs into my lap without asking. “Did you see me?” she demands. “The landing part. Not the falling part. The getting-up part.”
“I saw all of it,” I say, brushing dirt from her knee. “Especially the getting-up part.”
She grins, satisfied, and launches herself back into motion like gravity is optional.
Behind me, the open doors carry voices from inside the house. Low laughter. Overlapping sentences. Someone drops a glass and curses mildly. Someone else laughs harder than the joke deserves. The sound reaches me without pulling at me, without demanding I turn around to check where I stand.
Desire hums quietly in my body, present but unsharpened. Love rests beside it without argument.
That still feels miraculous.
Lucia steps into the garden carrying two glasses, pauses when she sees me watching the children, and smiles in a way that doesn’t interrupt the moment. “You’ve been sitting there a while,” she says gently.
“I didn’t notice,” I reply.
“That’s new,” she observes, handing me one of the glasses. “You usually notice everything.”
I take it from her, our fingers brushing briefly. The touch doesn’t jolt me or demand interpretation. It simply exists. “I’m practicing selective attention,” I say. “Only the important things.”
She glances toward the children. “Then you’re doing very well.”
Leonel looks up at us, suspicious. “Are you talking about us?”
“Yes,” Lucia answers easily.
“Good or bad?” Aurelia asks, reappearing at my knee.
“Very good,” I say.
Aurelia nods, accepting it as fact, and immediately challenges Leonel again. “Race you to the tree.”
“That’s not fair,” he protests. “You always cheat.”
“I don’t cheat,” she says. “I improvise.”
Lucia sits beside me, close enough that our shoulders almost touch but don’t quite. “You look peaceful,” she says.
I think about it before answering. “I am.”
She studies me for a moment. “You never used to say that.”
“I didn’t know how,” I admit.
She smiles softly. “You learned.”
“Yes,” I say. “I did.”
Footsteps approach from the path, measured and familiar. Adrian stops at the edge of the garden instead of entering it, hands in his pockets, watching the children with quiet focus.
“They’ve redefined flying again,” he says mildly.
Leonel huffs. “She’s cheating.”
Adrian crouches slightly, meeting Leonel’s eye line. “Are you losing?”
Leonel considers. “Temporarily.”
“Then you’re still winning,” Adrian replies.
Leonel nods, mollified, and goes back to rebuilding.
Adrian straightens and looks at me. He doesn’t ask anything. He just nods once, a gesture that isn’t permission or concern but acknowledgment. I nod back, equally wordless.
From inside the house, Matteo’s voice carries through the doors. “If anyone moved my keys again, I swear—”
“You left them in the fridge,” someone answers.
“That’s not helpful,” Matteo mutters, and laughter follows.
Lucia glances over her shoulder toward the sound, then back to me. “They warned you about this,” she says quietly.
I smile. “They warned me about a lot of things.”
“That a life without hierarchy would collapse,” she continues. “That love without ownership would fail.”
“That desire without rules would destroy everything,” I add.
“And?” she asks.
“And they were wrong,” I say.
Leonel approaches more slowly this time, wiping his hands on his shirt. “Can we stay out longer?” he asks. “I’m almost done.”
“Yes,” I answer without checking with anyone else.
He pauses, surprised. “You didn’t ask.”
“I don’t need to,” I say.
He studies my face carefully. “You seem… happy.”
“I am,” I reply.
He nods, satisfied, and returns to his project.
The sun dips lower, painting the garden in gold and shadow. The air cools just enough to be felt. I lean back against the wall, letting the sounds of my life move around me without anchoring me to obligation.
Lucia watches me from the corner of her eye. “What are you thinking?” she asks.
“That I spent years believing peace was something you earned after suffering,” I answer. “And that maybe it’s something you choose instead.”
She reaches out, resting her hand over mine. “You chose well.”
Aurelia barrels back toward me and climbs into my lap again, breathless and warm. Leonel follows more slowly, pretending he’s too old for closeness while still leaning against my knee.
“Tell us a story,” Aurelia demands.
“About what?” I ask.
“About flying,” she says.
I smile, wrapping my arms around them both. “Once upon a time,” I begin, “there was a woman who thought she had to ask permission to land.”
Leonel tilts his head. “Did she?”
“No,” I say. “She never did.”