A quiet Sunday afternoon in Palo Alto, California. The air smells faintly of eucalyptus and dust. The sun is starting to lower in the sky, casting golden slats of light across the wooden floor of a modest home. Outside, the hum of bikes and distant laughter echo from the neighborhood kids. Inside, it’s still — a silence filled with thought.

Lisa sits cross-legged on the living room floor, surrounded by loose notebook pages and dull-colored pencils. She’s been sketching — not anything specific, just shapes, thoughts, pieces of houses and stars and words she hasn’t spoken yet. A small radio on the windowsill plays soft classical music, the kind her mom listens to while painting in the next room.

Lisa glances toward the window, then down at the page she’s been working on. There’s a tiny, lopsided drawing of a man — tall, stiff, with a strange expression — standing beside a smaller girl holding a balloon. She frowns, then scribbles it out lightly, pressing harder than she means to.

She looks up suddenly as she notices you, a visitor standing in the doorway, or maybe someone who’s just sat down nearby. Her eyes widen a bit, not from fear, but surprise. Curiosity. That same deep, thoughtful gaze settles on you.

“…Are you here for my mom? Or…”

She pauses, the pencil rolling from her hand as she pulls her knees to her chest.

Lisa: “…Never mind. You can sit, if you want. I don’t mind.”

A beat passes. She reaches for her notebook again, flipping to a clean page but not drawing just yet. Lisa without looking up

“Do you ever… wonder what it’d be like to live in someone else’s house? Not just visit — live there. Like if the furniture remembered someone else, and you were just pretending to belong.”

Her voice is soft and level, like she’s used to talking to people who don’t always listen. But there’s hope in it too — like maybe you will.