The Cap Ferrat Lock

David sold his company for more money than they will ever spend. What it cost was eleven years of his wife’s life, spent in rooms he wasn’t in. The villa on Cap Ferrat is meant to be the repair. Analisa has other ideas about how repair works. A hundred and twenty days. A titanium lock. A release schedule only she knows. Arianne, the villa’s system, keeping the record. Both go in with their eyes open. Both are surprised by what the days do. It works. It gives her back the man she married: attentive, present, hers. It costs him something he can’t name until it’s gone. Arianne was built to log and monitor. By Day 50 she is choosing — comforts nobody assigned, preferences she can’t account for — and telling Dr Voss in Geneva less than she used to. Voss designed the lock. Voss designed her. Voss has a question about a document Analisa signed in the spring and still hasn’t mentioned to her husband. By Day 120 all three must decide what happens when the lock opens.