The woman looked up at him slowly, her expression neither frightened nor defensive, but filled instead with a quiet sorrow that seemed far too familiar.
“They found me,” she replied softly. “I did not call them.”
One of the girls turned her face toward Matteo with accuracy that made his breath catch in his throat.
“Papa,” she said gently, “why did you never tell us she existed.”
Matteo stared at her, unable to speak, because she was not guessing where he stood, not reacting to a sound, but looking directly at him with eyes that should not have been able to see him at all.
“You cannot see,” he whispered hoarsely, though the words sounded hollow even to his own ears.
“Yes we can,” another girl replied calmly. “When she is here.”
The third reached up and touched the old woman’s cheek with careful affection, tracing lines she could not possibly know.
“She smells like Mama,” she said. “Like the soap she used at night.”
The square seemed to fade away as Matteo’s world narrowed to the impossible truth unfolding in front of him, and the caregiver stood frozen nearby, unable to offer any explanation, because there was none that logic could provide.
That evening, the house felt different.
The girls talked continuously as Matteo listened from the doorway, their voices filled with excitement and wonder as they described the colors of the sky, the sparkle of water in the fountain, the movement of people and birds, and the softness of the woman’s shawl, and each word landed heavily in his chest as he realized they were not imagining these details but recalling them with clarity.
“How do you know these things,” he asked at last, his voice strained as he leaned against the doorframe.
“We saw them,” one replied simply.
“You have never seen,” he said, though his certainty was crumbling with every breath.
“Not before,” another answered. “She showed us how to open our eyes.”
Sleep never came that night.
Matteo sat alone in his study, holding a photograph of his late wife Isadora, taken years earlier when laughter had come easily and fear had not yet learned how to live in his home. She had believed in intuition and kindness, in things that could not always be measured, and as grief washed over him, he wondered whether his insistence on certainty and authority had blinded him in ways far more dangerous than darkness.
The next afternoon, he returned to the plaza.