Esther’s face doesn’t flinch; it softens. She crosses the small space and, without fussing, draws me into an embrace that is simple and steady. Her arms are warm; they hold me like a harbor. I bury my face into her shoulder, and the sob that was trying to split me comes out ragged and small. I'm not sorry for it.
“It’s okay,” she murmurs into my hair. “You’re safe here, Sophia.”
When the first rush subsides and the rivers slow to a trickle, she takes a step back and sits by the small window. “Would you like some tea? Green? Ginger?” Her voice is both professional and human, a mother and clinician braided together.
“Green,” I whisper. My voice is thin, but I want it to be real.
She hands me a cup like handing over a lifeline. I clutch it, the warmth steadying a place inside that’s been hollow. She watches, attentive without prying. “Do you want to tell me why you came?” she asks gently. Not a demand. A doorway.
I try to find the words, but the images don’t line up. So instead, I say the smallest truth. “I… I can’t call my brother. I can’t call Marcello. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know if I should leave. I thought—” I stop.
“You’re allowed to be confused,” she says. “You’re allowed to be scared. Those are normal responses to what you survived.” There’s no pity in her voice, only a steady, almost matter-of-fact kindness. Her hands fold around her mug as if she’s anchoring herself before guiding me.
She doesn’t push. Instead, she asks the thing therapists teach first, “Do you feel safe right now, in this room?”
The question is small and concrete. I look around. The curtains are drawn, and there is a lock on the door, but it's not locked. I clench the mug and answer, “A little.”
“Good,” she says. “We start there.” She leans forward. “Before we ever touch the difficult parts, I want to teach you two things you can use the moment your body decides to panic. They aren’t magic. They’re tools that give your nervous system something to do other than fight or drown.” She smiles, it's warm, the kind of smilethat does not erase pain but says it understands. “You know the breathing and the grounding?” she asks.
I blink. “Yes. Box breath. Five things you can see, four you can touch…” The words come out small, as if I'm listing them off for the first time. They’re practiced. I’ve used them in bathrooms, in corners, in the dark. They get me back from falling apart enough to breathe.
“Good.” Her mouth tilts in a clean, almost relieved smile. “That’s a lot of progress, Sophia. It means your nervous system has already learned some routes back to safety. That’s huge.”
Relief hits me so quick it surprises me, not because she said it, but because someone else noticed. I suck in a breath, steadier than before. She moves to a low table and opens a small wooden box. Inside is a smooth, palm-sized river stone and a thin, braided bracelet, nothing flashy, just cotton thread in muted colors. She places the stone in my hand like an offering.
“This is for the next step,” she says. “You do the breathing and the five senses when things spike. This is different. It’s called a safe-place anchor.” She sits down opposite me, and her voice gets the gentle cadence of someone teaching a child to swim. “Close your eyes if you want.”
I close them. The room narrows to the sound of her chair creaking and my own breath.
“Think of a place—real or imagined—where you feel entirely, thoroughly safe,” she says. “Not a memory ofsafety. A place you can go in your mind that has no threat in it. Describe it. Smell it. Who’s there? What does the sky feel like? Don’t rush it.”
I picture a lake, not a place where I have physically been, but one I have visited in books and dreams. The air is cold and sharp, the water glass-smooth, and the light is late afternoon gold. There’s no husband there. No suits, no phone calls. Just the sound of a bird, the distant creak of a dock. My chest loosens around the image like a hand uncoiling.
“Good,” Esther murmurs. “Now press the stone in your hand. Feel the weight. Notice the texture.” I do. The stone is cool and oddly grounding, a solid fact between my fingers. “Keep your eyes closed and name three things you notice about the stone—color, temperature, weight. Let the safe place and the stone pair together in your mind. When you’re overwhelmed, you can hold this stone and call that place. Your body will get the message: we are safe.”
She pauses, letting the instruction settle. “This is part visualization, part tactile cue,” she explains. “It’s simple, but it gives the brain two anchors: a mental scene and a physical sensation. Practice it when you’re calm, two minutes in the morning, two at night. The more you pair them, the faster your system learns the route back.”
I feel silly and childish, but something about the stone in my palm steadies me. I practice the pair once, twice, and the lake comes to me with the clarity of a photograph.When I open my eyes, the world looks less like an ambush.
Esther leans forward. “Also—body scan. From your toes to the top of your head, notice where you’re carrying tension. Don’t judge it—just notice. Breathe into the tight places and let them relax a degree. Do it before you go to sleep and when you wake; it slows the alarm.”
She writes a short list on a sticky note—box breath, five senses, safe-place + stone, brief body scan—and hands it to me. “Keep it on your mirror. Small, repeatable things. They’re not cures. They’re tools. Tools make work possible.”
“Deeper work will come,” she adds quickly, as if she can read the impatience in me. “But this gives you something to use now, in your body, without a therapist present. You don’t have to be heroic about it. You just have to practice.”
I look at the stone, then at the bracelet. The bracelet is coarse under my fingers, knotted by someone who probably did it for a reason I’ll never entirely know. I loop it on my wrist because it feels like claiming a small, private right to choose something for myself.
“Can I...?” I start, then stop.
“Yes,” Esther says. “You can use anything: a stone, a piece of cloth, a scent. The important part is that you own the cue.”
I fold the stone into my palm and feel the weight of it, and I breathe. I take another sip of tea, and for this hour at least—the hour where someone listens and names the things that hurt—I am not alone.
When I stand to leave the suite, the corridor light looks a touch kinder. The panic hasn’t gone, but there’s now a practical map in my pocket and a small object that answers when my chest starts to run away.
Later, I’m in bed with the phone still in my hand. The screen reflects the faint glow from the lamp, waiting for me to unlock it, to do what Raffael said I could do.
I should call Marcello. I should tell him I’m safe. I should tell him… something. Anything. But the thought of hearing his voice unravels me. I can already imagine the way it will sound—relieved, maybe choked, maybe worried—and I know I’ll break. I’ll cry until I can’t breathe, and he’ll hear every sob, and there will be nothing he can do about it from where he is.
