The air in the courtyard of Casa Esquivel tastes of baked stone and the dusty, green promise of the coming almond harvest. Paloma stands in the shadow of the portico, her linen smock sticking slightly to her shoulder blades in the vertical heat of noon. She adjusts her late husband’s gold band on the leather thong at her neck, the metal warm against her skin, a familiar weight that usually grounds her. Today, it feels like an anchor dragging against a current she cannot name.
Everything is prepared for the woodturner’s arrival, from the cleared space beneath the ancient olives to the guest room with its scrubbed floors and fresh water. Inmaculada crosses the gravel with a crate of split hulls, her eyes scanning Paloma’s face with a sharpness that sees through the practiced stillness of a widow’s mask. There is no more time for the quiet rhythm of the last three years; the residency is a debt Mateo signed into being, and the debt has come due. Paloma wipes a bead of sweat from her temple and looks toward the gate.
The crunch of heavy tires sounds on the gravel, slowing as a flatbed truck rounds the olive grove.
