“I think I’m okay with it. At least for now.” The words come out quieter than I expect. “I don’t want to replace one kind of control with another. Plus, I don't want to hear the smugness when he realizes Ridge did exactly what he warned me he would.”
Delphine nods, like she’s filing that away, then lifts her cup for another sip.
After a few minutes, she sets it down. “Ready to check out those lanterns?”
I nod, grateful for the chance to move. Sitting still feels impossible today.
Outside, the air is cool and clean, the kind that makes me pull my jacket closer without thinking. We walk side by side down the uneven sidewalk, navigating around tourists and locals alike.
The paper lantern installation starts at the edge of the square. Dozens of colorful orbs are suspended from thin wires, creating a canopy overhead.
"They're beautiful," I murmur, tilting my head back to look up at them.
"They are."
We move slowly beneath them, the sunlight filtering through the colored paper and casting rainbow shadows on the ground. A group of children runs past, laughing and pointing upward.
“The worst part isn’t even that he left,” I say out of nowhere as we pause beside a mixed-media sculpture of the Mississippi River. “It’s that I believed in a version of him that could only exist when we were alone.”
Delphine turns to me, her expression open, steady. She lets me get it out.
“I thought I was choosing something dangerous but honest,” I add. “Now I know he was never any different than what I wanted to escape.”
Saying it out loud makes the truth more solid, more bearable somehow. The ache is still there, but it's no longer choking me.
She keeps walking and doesn’t try to soften any of it, which I appreciate.
We pause beneath a particularly beautiful lantern. The deep blue hues are so vibrant, especially against the delicate silver patterns that cast intricate shadows.
"Look up," Delphine says gently, touching my elbow. "The artist made these to represent resilience. See how the light finds every opening?"
I tilt my head back, watching how the sunlight penetrates the paper, creating patterns I hadn't noticed before.
“It’s really cool,” I whisper, my chest expanding with a full breath for the first time in days.
Delphine smiles. “Art always helps, doesn’t it? Even when it can’t fix everything.”
I peek inside a pale yellow paper lantern, drawn to the way the sunlight thickens the paper from the inside out, turning it warmer, almost luminous. It looks fragile until you’re this close.
Moving deeper into the installation, where sheer fabric panels create narrow paths between the pieces. The colors shift from blue to violet as we walk, tinting skin and shadows until everything feels slightly unreal.
“I feel…” I stop, then say it. “Untethered.”
Delphine looks at me, waiting. She never fills the silence for me.
“I’m not even talking about Ridge,” I add. “I mean everything.”
I gesture past the art, toward the square and the city beyond it. “My father isn’t speaking to me, Ridge walked out, and I’m still here, with nothing that’s actually mine.”
“Then we find something that is yours.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know how to be in this city and not be my father’s daughter.”
We stop beside a sculpture made of driftwood and sea glass. Light spills through it, breaking across the pavement in ripples that look like water.
“Your father’s silence hurts,” Delphine says. “But it might also be the first time you haven’t been pulled back into orbit by his expectations.”
The idea lands awkwardly, then shifts. Before, every time I tried to step away, something always dragged me back. A call. A favor. A reminder.
