In balance with this life, this death. (гет)

Lucrezia thanks him, and after a few traded words of parting the line disconnects. For a few moments he can do nothing but sit and stare at the stacked coasters atop the coffee table. He looks at the darkened room, at its familiar shapes and edges and wonders when his life had fractured into so many disparate halves. There stands some precipice before him and beyond a vastness which he cannot entertain. Cesare has not seen her for three years.