The air was heavy with ash, each breath burning like a silent scream. Rosa stood at the edge of what was once her home, her trembling hands clutching the charred remains of a porcelain angel. It was the only thing left unbroken, spared by the inferno that had swallowed everything else.

A week ago, her living room had been filled with laughter. The family photo wall, filled with decades of memories, had been her pride. Birthdays, graduations, her late husband’s crooked smile—all now reduced to blackened rubble. Rosa closed her eyes and tried to summon their faces, but all she could see were flames.

"Mom?" A voice called softly behind her. Rosa turned to see her daughter, Elena, holding a bundle of singed papers. They were brittle and blackened around the edges—Rosa’s recipes, written in her mother’s cursive hand, smudged and faint but still there.

Rosa collapsed to her knees, clutching the bundle like it was life itself. Tears cut clean paths down her soot-covered cheeks. "At least… at least we saved this," she whispered.

Elena crouched beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "We’ll start over, Mom. Together."

But Rosa’s heart cracked at the thought of rebuilding. She was seventy-two, and every room she had filled with love, every pot she had stirred in laughter, every sweater she had knitted for cold winters—it was all gone. Starting over felt like betrayal, like leaving a part of herself buried beneath the ashes.

In the distance, the fires still burned, devouring the homes of strangers she would never meet but now shared a deep, wordless grief with. Somewhere, children cried, fathers cursed, and neighbors packed their lives into cars. The cost of this blaze couldn’t be measured in dollars but in memories.

Rosa exhaled shakily. “We’ll try,” she said. “We’ll try.”

Elena smiled, though her own eyes glistened. The sun began to set, painting the smoky sky a deep orange, as if the flames had taken the horizon too. Rosa reached for her daughter’s hand, the porcelain angel tucked safely under her arm, and together, they walked back to the shelter.

It wasn’t home. But it was a start.