Page 105 of Enzo
I read and re-read the last message, hoping it meant that my cousin Hannah was healing.
Arianna: Live happily. Her memories will forever be part of you and all of us.
Me: You’re right. She’d want that.
My parents’ voices traveled through the manor, pulling me away from my friends’ and cousins’ condolences.
“I can’t!” Mama shouted.
The office door was slightly ajar. Voices and sobs drifted down the long corridor, muted and broken, like waves crashing on distant shorelines.
Mama’s cries had softened now. The fury was gone, replaced by an aching sorrow.
“What am I going to do, Luca?” she wept. “How can I live without her?”
“She would want us to… live,” Papà said. His voice cracked around the word.
He was right. Amara would have wanted us to keep going. She enjoyed being fussed over—but not like this. Not buried under pity and despair. Still, the idea of moving on felt impossible. Like learning to breathe underwater.
I found myself drifting closer, my footsteps silent on the rug.
“This is my punishment,” Mama whispered. “I took Penelope away from you, and God took my baby…”
Her voice broke.
Blood drained from my face as my stomach turned to stone. I stood frozen, caught between their grief and mine.
“No, Margaret,” Papà said. “She’s sick…” He paused, the present tense hanging in the air like a wound. Then his voice hardened. “Shewassick,” he said again, harsher now, as if the correction itself tore something open. “And she was so brave. Brave in ways no child should ever have to be. Not even for us.”
“We should’ve gone to the black market. To hell with honor. To hell with doing the right thing.” Her voice cracked again. “They can’t say it’s wrong when they haven’t seen their child suffer. They didn’t lose a child.”
She began to sob—loud, broken sobs that echoed off the walls.
“Don’t you think I wanted to?” he roared. “Amara refused.”
The blood pounded in my ears. My knees buckled.
“You asked her?” Mama gasped.
“I did. Several times. The last time was the day she died. She told me an angel had asked her the same question. She refused because she couldn’t stand the idea of someone else dying for her.”
“Why did you tell her that someone would die for it, Luca?” Mama screamed.
“I didn’t,” he said hoarsely. “But she was… she was smart. Too smart.”
Just then, another wail shattered the air—and arms wrapped gently around me.
I looked up through the blur of tears and into my husband’s face.
“Shhh. I got you,” he whispered.
He lifted me into his arms. I clung to him, burying my face into his chest as the tears came harder, unstoppable. His scent wrapped around me like a shelter, steady and warm, while my world came apart in his arms.
A bell tolled in the distance.
My husband’s firm fingers gripped my hand tighter, grounding me. Yet, not even his warmth could stop this cold from crawling up my body and spreading like the cancer that killed my sister.
The very same bells that announced my wedding were now announcing death.
