Florence, late morning
The Duomo stood still as ever.
Its grandeur didn't shift for anyone—especially not for those looking to remember something. Or someone.
It loomed like time carved into marble.
The sky above was a blanket of quiet gray.
Not the threatening kind of gray.
Not rain. Not storm.
Just a kind of hush—like the world had turned its volume down and forgotten to turn it back up.
Elisa stood at the edge of the piazza, her hood drawn low, a loose strand of hair caught on her lips.
Under one arm, clutched like a fragile heirloom: the sketchbook.
Her mother's sketchbook.
The spine worn soft.
The corners curled.
The scent of old pencil graphite and faint lavender still clinging to the pages.
There were no crowds this morning.
No Rafael waiting on a bench with two cups of gelato.
No chatter. No pigeons fighting over crumbs.
Just silence.
The distant echo of bells from another street.
And her own breath caught in her chest—too much, too tight.
---
She hadn't planned to come alone.
But she needed the silence.
There are some days when talking feels like a betrayal—when words only make the ache louder.
So she didn't bring company.
Not even her thoughts.
Only the weight of a sketchbook.
And the ache of unfinished things.
---
Inside, the cathedral swallowed her whole.
Florence Cathedral wasn't just stone and fresco.
It was lungs and ribs.
A body of belief built centuries ago, still breathing.
She stepped under its arches as though entering something alive.
The stained-glass windows filtered gray daylight into jeweled shadows.
The ceiling was impossibly high.
Painted saints gazed down from above—not warm or comforting, but watchful.
Dispassionate. Distant.
As if they'd seen too many prayers to care who whispered the next.
The air was cool.
The kind of cool that sinks through your soles and into your bones—reminding you that this place was older than your grief.
Older than memory.
---
Elisa walked past the main altar.
Past the tourist ropes.
Past the statue where someone had left a single white lily.
She didn't care if someone stopped her.
She wasn't here to tour.
She was here to remember.
Row twelve.
Right aisle.
Third seat from the end.
Her mother's seat.
She knew because of a note scribbled in the margin of the sketchbook:
"Duomo. R12. 3rd in. Feels like breathing from inside stone."
She sat down.
No one looked at her.
The cathedral made everyone invisible.
---
She didn't open the sketchbook.
Not right away.
Didn't draw.
Didn't pretend.
She just stared.
At the high arch.
At the beams of light catching on dust motes.
At the space her mother once saw.
The exact view her mother had looked at when she jotted that sentence.
For a moment, they were sitting together—ten years apart, two lifetimes divided by grief.
Elisa could almost hear her mother's voice.
That low, smoky warmth.
The laugh that leaned sideways.
The whisper of "Look closer."
---
She didn't cry.
Not immediately.
But grief isn't polite.
It doesn't wait its turn.
It doesn't knock.
It just leaks.
At first, it was a flicker behind her eyes.
Then a lump in her throat.
Then a burn in her ribs.
Tears didn't fall—but her hands trembled.
She held the sketchbook like it was the only solid thing left of the woman who used to sing off-key while washing brushes.
Her thumb brushed the cover.
Then, slowly, she opened it.
To the last page.
The unfinished sketch of the Duomo.
Her mother's final drawing.
The lines were confident at first—measured, architectural, intentional.
But toward the right side, the lines began to shake.
Wobble.
Fade.
The final arch was a half-thought.
A suggestion.
Then nothing.
And beneath the drawing, written faintly—almost swallowed by time:
"Finish this when you find it."
No signature.
No heart drawn at the end of her name, like she used to do when signing birthday cards.
Just a sentence.
A sentence that felt less like a message and more like a dare.
A challenge from someone no longer alive.
---
Elisa exhaled.
Her breath caught.
Came out shaky.
She flipped backward through the pages.
Faster now.
Her eyes scanned charcoal sketches, watercolor landscapes, ink notes in the margins.
The Arno.
A cat she once met in Lucca.
The rooftops of Siena.
A half-drawn self-portrait.
And then—
She stopped.
Her hand froze on a page she hadn't noticed before.
It was taped in.
A folded sheet of delicate parchment, thinner than the rest.
Gold pressed into the corners like flourishes on an invitation.
She unfolded it carefully.
Inside—
A map.
Not a tourist map.
An architectural sketch.
Detailed. Precise.
A building she didn't recognize.
Its lines curved like music.
Beside it, in tiny handwriting:
"Not everything beautiful is in guidebooks. Some things wait to be found."
And below that, in bold ink:
"Perseveranza."
(Perseverance.)
---
Elisa stared at the page.
Not because she understood it.
But because—for the first time—her mother hadn't spoken in riddles.
She had given her a place to begin.
Not a vague idea of "beauty."
A real place. A map. A word.
It wasn't closure.
But it was direction.
And in grief, sometimes even one arrow is enough.
---
The cathedral bells rang again.
11 o'clock.
The sound echoed through stone like the chime of time itself.
Elisa stood slowly.
She no longer clutched the sketchbook like armor.
She held it like a compass.
---
As she stepped outside, the clouds above shifted—just a little.
A sliver of sunlight broke through, thin and slanted, and spilled over the front of the Duomo.
The stone glowed.
Soft. Pale. Almost shy.
Elisa didn't smile.
But something inside her… loosened.
The silence wasn't so sharp now.
And then—her phone buzzed in her coat pocket.
A single notification lit the screen.
____________•••____________
One Plus
You are one plus away from finishing what she couldn't.
____________•••____________