Andrea Ricolfi crafts a delicate novel about waiting and trust, about chance, which sometimes brings us gifts from people we don't know where they come from, but who seem to have arrived to take away some of our shadows.

Complex, shy, elusive. If asked to choose a constellation, Emma Hayes would point to Hydra: “the lonely one.” She lives in a cabin overlooking the Pacific Ocean and photographs endangered animals, capturing the last moments of creatures unaware of their imminent demise. It is her way of showing that every life deserves to be remembered. Emma has a past that won't go away, floating in silence without asking to be resolved. Until one day, at a crossroads in Witeburgh, the unexpected bursts into her life: Louis Drake. Seventy years old, he has just been released from prison after forty-two years of incarceration. Two souls who should never have met recognize in each other the same urgency: to speak and finally be heard, understood. For different reasons, neither of them feels at home in the world, and they give their encounter a chance. Emma trusts him. So much so that she entrusts Louis with the care of her elderly mother. But what is really hidden behind his silences? Will Louis be able to show her the direction from which to start again, and find it for himself?