Chapter One-Two-Two: Without Me

"Look at that, Mari!”

Elizabeth says as she points to the snowy mountains; Luca cranes his neck to see what is being shown.

Anyone can tell that she is trying to distract the twins from the tension in the space. I'm thankful for her efforts, but my attention is on Matteo.

The entire tour is breathtaking, and it's not snowing too heavily, so our ascension and movement through the mountains is smooth.

Perhaps because my mind had been racing for a while, we reached the end of the ride relatively fast.

Luckily, the station was different from where we had boarded; even so, because the older woman must have known where we alighted, I found myself praying that we would not meet again—luckily, we didn’t.

After a quiet and awkward dinner at a rustic and private restaurant, which was characterised by much silence from Matteo, I finally decided to grab the bull by the horns and ask Elizabeth to take the kids back to the resort for a jacuzzi session that they were discussing vividly while I spoke