Elias had teased her for that.
He had told her that the brownstone was already perfect.
Three stories of old Boston elegance. Tall windows. Crown molding. A library with a fireplace carved from dark stone. A nursery painted pale blue because Amelia refused to believe that girls needed pink walls to be happy. Everything designed, restored, and arranged until the house looked like something from a glossy magazine.
But Amelia had only laughed, pressing Harper’s tiny hand against Elias’s cheek.
- “A perfect house is not the same as a happy one,” she had said.
At the time, Elias had smiled because he had not understood.
He understood now.
A perfect house could still become a tomb.
For eighteen months after Amelia’s death, the brownstone remained beautiful, spotless, and unbearably silent. The kind of silence that did not feel peaceful, but watchful. The kind that pressed against Elias’s chest the moment he stepped inside.
No cartoons played in the living room anymore.
No small plastic toys were scattered beneath the piano.
No half-eaten apples sat forgotten on the kitchen island.
No little voice called, “Daddy!” from the top of the stairs.
Only silence.
Thick. Heavy. Suffocating.
Elias came home every evening to that silence and pretended it did not destroy him.
He was good at pretending.
He had built a career on control, discipline, and knowing exactly what to do when other men panicked. Carter Global Development had not become one of the most powerful real estate firms in Boston because Elias was soft. Investors feared him. Competitors studied him. Employees straightened when he walked into a room.
