SERA

We painted the nursery on a Saturday.

The East Wing was unrecognizable. The heavy curtains were gone, replaced by sheer white

panels that let the morning light flood the room in long, warm rectangles. The dark wood

floor had been sanded and refinished in a lighter stain. The walls were bare, clean, stripped

of photographs and perfume bottles and the suffocating weight of preserved grief.

Kael had done most of the renovation himself, in the weeks between the tribunal

proceedings and the ...