Chapter 4: When Silence Isn't Enough

Every morning Kathalina still woke up in the old house, the house that had been her safe place since childhood. The walls carried the faint smell of roasted coffee beans, the sweet trace of her mother's favorite jasmine soap, and the soft perfume of flowers that always lingered from fresh vases placed in every corner. It was as if the air itself remembered her mother and refused to let go.

The kitchen looked the same as it had a week ago. The checkered curtains swayed whenever the morning breeze slipped through the open window, and the wooden dining table still bore faint scratches from years of family meals, stories, and laughter. Sometimes Kathalina caught herself waiting.........waiting for the sound of pans clattering, waiting for the whistle of boiling water, waiting for her mother to appear with her gentle smile and ask her what she wanted for breakfast. But all she found was silence.

The living room, once so full of warmth, felt like a museum now. Family photos lined the shelves, frozen smiles staring back at her. The embroidered cushions her mother had sewn herself were neatly arranged on the couch, though no one sat on them anymore. Even the clock on the wall ticked too loudly, each sound a reminder of time moving forward without the woman who had filled the house with life.

At night, Kathalina often stayed in her mother's room. The bed was perfectly made, the cream-colored sheets tucked tight the way her mother liked, though they were cold to the touch. On the dresser, perfume bottles still gleamed under the lamplight, their caps untouched, their scents locked away like memories. A stack of neatly folded towels sat by the closet......her mother's habit of always being prepared "just in case" guests came. Every detail was still there, intact, preserved. Nothing had moved. Nothing had changed. And yet the absence was unbearable.

The silence in the house was the hardest part. It wasn't just quiet.... It was hollow, pressing against her chest until she felt she couldn't breathe. It was the silence of a home without laughter, without footsteps, without the soft humming of her mother in the hallway.

Kathalina wandered through those rooms like a shadow, clinging to what was left. But every corner reminded her of what she had lost.

Now, she was left alone. The house was quiet, almost too quiet, the silence was broken only by her phone ringing every few hours.

It was Erika.

Her college best friend who had always been full of life, calling from Milan. Erika had built a career there, chasing her dreams with the same energy she used to drag Kathalina to night markets and small cafés back in college. She called every day, checking on her, her voice steady but full of worry.

"Kath, are you eating? Please tell me you're eating."

"I'm fine," Kathalina always answered, though her voice betrayed her.

Sometimes she didn't even know if she had eaten. The days blurred into one another morning coffee gone cold, nights where she curled up on the sofa until dawn. Her grief swallowed the whole time.

Erika kept insisting. "If you can't cook, just order. Don't stay in the dark, open the curtains. Please, Kath. I'm worried."

The concern warmed her, but it also reminded her of her loneliness. Everyone else had moved on with their lives, but Kathalina's world had stopped the day her mother took her last breath.

One evening, she found herself in the garden. Her mother's roses were wilting, untended for days. The sight of them broke something in her. She knelt in the dirt, tears running freely again. She whispered,

"Mom, what do I do now?"

She remembered then a summer long ago, her mother kneeling in the same spot, teaching her how to prune roses.

"You have to cut the dying parts away, Kathy," her mother had said gently. "If you hold on to them, they will only drain the plant. Letting go gives it a chance to bloom again."

At the time, Kathalina had laughed, saying she didn't want to hurt the flowers. Her mother had smiled knowingly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Sometimes letting go is the kindest thing we can do."

The memory hurt and soothed her at once.

But the world outside didn't give her peace for long.

One morning, the headlines came. The news of her marriage to Thirdie is breaking, its quiet end splashed across the media like a storm. Reporters crowded outside her gate, cameras flashing, questions shouted over one another.

"Miss Ruiz, is it true you divorced Thirdie Stone?"

"Why did the marriage fail?"

"Did you leave him, or did he leave you?"

Their voices clawed at her like sharp talons. Reporters outside her gate shouted her name, their cameras flashing whenever a curtain so much as shifted. She tried to ignore them, but the endless ringing of her phone made her reach for it at last.

The first thing that appeared was a flood of headlines. Thirdie Stone spotted at gala with Agnes. Stone's marriage rumored officially over. Her chest tightened as she clicked one article, only to be greeted with photos....... Thirdie in his black suit, Agnes on his arm in a silver gown, smiling so close it almost looked rehearsed. The crowd around them laughed, toasted, applauded.

Kathalina stared at the screen until her vision blurred. Her heart felt like glass shattering piece by piece. Not because she still wanted him, she wasn't sure if she did anymore but because the cruelty of the timing cut so deep. While she was drowning in grief, hiding in the shadow of her mother's absence, he was out there, shining under chandeliers with someone else.

She remembered the same gala two years ago, when it was her hand Thirdie guided. The press flashes had been blinding, but she hadn't cared because he had leaned down to murmur, "Just hold on to me. Ignore the noise." His palm had been steady against hers, grounding, a quiet promise in the storm of flashing bulbs. She remembered how he would glance at her often, making sure she wasn't overwhelmed, how he always made space for her even when the world wanted to devour them whole.

Now that steadiness, that protective closeness, belonged to someone else.

Her stomach churned. She scrolled down comments praising their "chemistry," speculations that Agnes was the better match, cleaner, less tragic, unburdened by loss. Some even called Agnes radiant compared to Kathalina's "cold, detached demeanor."

She dropped the phone on the bed, turned it face down, as if that could erase the image seared into her mind. Then, with trembling hands, she pulled the curtains shut, shut off her phone completely, and let the silence swallow her. But even then, the noise lingered. The whispers, the judgment, the image of them together. It felt as if her private grief was not enough.....she had to endure the spectacle too.

Her heart could not bear it.

That night she sat at the dining table, head in her hands, tears slipping silently. She was exhausted from mourning her mother, and now the world demanded explanations for a wound she could not even name.

Her phone buzzed again. Erika's voice filled the dark.

"Kath, come here."

Those three words shook her.

Erika explained there was an opening in Milan a position in her company. She had already spoken to her boss, who was willing to hold it for Kathalina.

"You don't have to decide now," Erika said softly. "But you don't have to stay there either. Don't let them trap you in the noise. Come here, start over. Be with me."

Kathalina wiped her tears but said nothing at first. Leaving it felt like betrayal, her mother's house still stood, her memories were everywhere. But staying felt like suffocating.

That night she wandered through the rooms. She touched the kitchen counter where her mother used to roll dough, the living room where they had shared long talks, the hallway where the scent of her mother's perfume still lingered.

Flashbacks came uninvited.

Her mother waiting up late when Kathalina used to sneak home from college parties.

Her laughter echoed when Kathalina burned her first attempt at cooking.

The quiet nights when they had sat together, just the two of them, drinking tea by the window.

She clutched those memories to her chest, tears streaming.

"Mom, I don't want to leave you. But I don't know how to stay."

Another flashback surfaced Erika in their college dorm, pulling Kathalina out of bed after a long night of studying.

"Come on, Kath, life is too short to be serious all the time! Let's go find food before we die of boredom!"

Kathalina had always been the quiet one, the careful one, the one who carried too much on her shoulders. Erika had been her opposite......bright, bold, fearless. Yet somehow, they had become each other's anchor.

Now Erika's voice echoed across the miles, still trying to anchor her again.

The next morning, Kathalina made her decision.

She packed slowly, carefully, folding clothes into her suitcase with trembling hands. She left most of the house untouched, as if her mother might still return to it. She only took what she needed, carrying the rest in her heart.

When the reporters gathered again, they found only silence. The house stood quiet, its curtains drawn, the gate locked.

By the end of the week, Kathalina was gone.

She boarded a plane bound for Milan, her heart heavy, her eyes staring out the window as the clouds swallowed the city below. She was leaving behind her grief, her broken marriage, the chaos that had stolen her peace. But she carried with her the love of a mother now gone, and the hope of a friend waiting on the other side of the ocean.

For the first time in weeks, she let herself breathe.

Maybe this was what her mother had meant cutting away the dying parts, so something new could bloom again.