The penthouse settled into something that felt almost like peace.
It was a Tuesday evening in early October, three weeks after Elaine's departure, and the city was doing what it always did at this hour—shifting from the harsh gold of afternoon into the soft pink and amber of early evening. The floor-to-ceiling windows caught every color and threw it across the living room walls, painting the white furniture in shades of rose and coral. The skyline glittered in the distance, a thousand windows catching the last of the sunlight, and somewhere far below, the streets of Manhattan hummed with the quiet persistence of evening traffic.
