Page 2 of King

Murmurs of agreement breeze through the crowd of people listening, watching me with stoic eyes.

“Bella, the mother of my children, left this world three days ago and while she is no longer with us in the flesh - she is with us, a piece of her in each of our souls, engraved into our memories forever.”

Three days.

The nights since she passed have been too long and too cold. The bed has been empty, something I’ve not used to, and never thought I would need to be.

It was only this morning, for the first time, that I referred to her in the past tense. It’s taken me a long time to accept the truth–that she’s gone.

I’m still struggling to wrap my head around, not seeing her smiling face in the kitchen every morning or finding her curled up on the sofa in the library, reading in the afternoon sun.

She was too young.

But the cancer drained her. Slowly, day by day, it took from her until there was nothing left but a shell of who she used to be. her pain was horrifying to witness.

Her death is a torture in my soul, but also a relief to no longer see her in that pain.

I look up at the waiting faces in the crowded church and realize I haven’t spoken for a long time.

“Bella.” I stammer. But my throat closes, and I can’t say another word.

Santino steps closer to me, gently pushing me away from the podium. With incredible strength, he takes my place and continues.

“My mother was my guiding light—” he talks and I turn my face down to the ground to hide my tears.

After the eulogies, we are all standing outside in the heavy torrents of rain. Black umbrellas form a canopy above us as we watch her coffin slowly sink into the earth, swallowed up in a dark hole. I can’t begin to understand any of this.

I’ll never see her again.

My mind taunts me, and I pull my eyes from the morbid scene, up towards the trees in the distance on the far side of the graveyard. Searching for something green, something alive and beautiful.

A figure stands alone, close to the crowd, but not part of it.

My heart stops cold in my chest.

Zina.

What is she doing here?

It’s been sixteen years since I last saw her and of all the days in all the world for her to come back - why would she show up at my wife’s funeral? She has to know she won’t be welcome.

I stare at her, dressed in black, with a boy standing at her side. How old is he? Fourteen? Fifteen?

Sixteen?

Why does the boy look so familiar?

Anger spikes inside me. It’s disrespectful of her to show up today. I drag my eyes off her and my mouth pulls tight.

“Who is that?” I hear Romeo asking Santino in a low whisper.

“I don’t know.” He whispers back.

Santino turns towards me with questioning eyes. I shake my head.

Not now.

When the time comes, I throw a handful of dirt onto to the top of her coffin, along with a single red rose, then I walk away from her for the last time, back into the warmth of the church building and rich scents of coffee and food that the Nona’s have been preparing for days.

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