It was on a Saturday morning—one of those increasingly rare mornings in which the sun, uninvited yet not unkind, poured itself over the cracked patio tiles and the crooked lilac hedges—that Cassandra Schmitt stood quietly in her garden, watering a hydrangea bush that hadn’t bloomed since the spring of ’72. The blue kettle in her hand tilted with the weight of routine. Her mind, however, wandered elsewhere. Not far—just enough to stop feeling altogether.

The window to the bedroom above was still open. The curtains flinched now and then in the breeze, but there was no sign of Horst. He had left earlier that morning, pretending to search for new brake pads. He would return with a faint smear of lipstick on his collar, smelling of Birgit’s stale perfume, and Cassandra wouldn’t ask. Not anymore.

Time had grown heavy, and questions had become too expensive to ask.

She adjusted her apron and glanced across the narrow hedge separating her garden from the neighboring property. A van was parked diagonally along the driveway. Foreign voices rose over boxes and clumsy footsteps. Cassandra paused.

It wasn’t the noise—though unusual for their sleepy West Berlin neighborhood—that caught her attention, but the rhythm of it. The high-pitched laugh. The peculiar music of it. Not Deutsch. Not Berlinerisch. No, this was distinctly foreign, the careless vowels and sugary consonants of American English. It filtered through the hedgerows like the faint scent of bubblegum or a movie played far too loud.

By noon the van was gone, replaced by an eerie silence that made the earlier bustle seem like a dream. Cassandra lingered a little longer outside than usual. She didn’t know what she was expecting.

At precisely 14:37, there was a knock on the door.

Not the mechanical rap of a postman or neighbor. This knock was light. Tentative. As if unsure of itself. Cassandra opened the door, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

And there she stood. A vision entirely out of joint with the world around her. She could have been an advertisement torn from a New York magazine and brought to life—perhaps too vividly. Copper-red hair like spilled brandy, enormous sunglasses shielding half her face, a white blouse that clung lazily to her shoulders, and shorts—shorts—that scandalized the dusty air between them. And boots. Cowboy boots. Epitome of an American dream.

The girl smiled. Bright. Too bright.

“Hi! I’m—so sorry. Do you, um—Sprechen du Englisch?”

Cassandra blinked. Her mouth opened, mechanically. “Yes.”

The girl sighed with too much relief, collapsing slightly against the doorframe. “Oh, thank God. I’ve been knocking next door, but they looked at me like I asked for heroin.”

Cassandra didn’t laugh. She only stared.

“I just moved in. The house next to yours. No hot water till Monday, apparently.” She held up a small bucket as if to validate her story. “Could I trouble you for a bit? Hot water, I mean.”

There was a pause—one that stretched too long and then snapped.

“Yes,” Cassandra said finally. She stepped aside. “Come in.”

The girl entered. Her perfume preceded her, something sweet and expensive. Powdered sugar kind of something.

“I’m Cassandra, by the way.”

The older woman froze. A thin echo crept between them.

“Pardon?”

The girl turned, bucket now placed on the counter. “Cassandra,” she repeated. “something..Wrong?”

“Oh, no! Just..I am Cassandra also.”

“Weird, right? What are the odds?”

Something cracked faintly inside the older woman’s chest. It wasn’t a laugh.

“Yes,” she said. “What are the odds.”