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My eyes followed each soothing motion of Max’s hand down her hair, his whispered words into her ear that I couldn’t decipher.
I was lost in a limbo of pain and despair, where besides the commotion around me, the world was dipped into a silence that felt a whole lot like emptiness.
Today I died a little. A piece of me ceasing to exist as my soul fell into a spiraling pit of slow-burning agony.
Today, I died a lot more than just a little.
???
I was glad to be back home. Hospitals have always been a place I hated. All those walls coated with sadness and dismay, not enough life to surpass the lingering presence of lost souls and the heavyweight of the losses suffered inside.
No matter how many times they renovated, how many coats of paint those walls had seen, it would never erase the screams they’d soaked up.
I had identified the body in a cold, barren room that did nothing but freeze my heart further as I bottled all of it up, trying as hard as I could to hold up this façade of a strong and ruthless man with no feelings. All that pretending broke my frozen heart into unmendable pieces, but I was keeping it together, waiting for the perfect time and safer space to let it shatter for good.
As soon as the door to our home closed behind me, I couldn’t hold it together any longer.
I was shoved to my knees by the uncontrolled sobs that overtook me as soon as that closing click hit my ears.
Francesca kneeled before me, taking me in her arms, as I cried on her chest, her encouragement and comfort being my only pillar in the middle of all this destruction.
“I’m here, Matt. Let it all out.” She whispered while tracing soothing circles on my back. “We will get through this together.”
I cried every single tear I still had left in my body. My well was as dry as a desert, shrinking my heart to the size of a dehydrated prune. With every tear I shed came a prayer that this feeling would go away, that I could shove my emotions into a fucking box and throw away the key for good.
After what seemed like an eternity, I managed to pick myself up from the floor, as my wife guided me to our room.
Francesca undid my tie, and unfastened every button on my shirt., before shrugging it off my shoulders and making me lie under the covers of our bed. I watched her strip from her clothes too, and snuggle next to me, the touch of her skin on mine bringing me a comfort I wasn’t expecting.
I buried my nose in her dark hair, breathing in her soft and comforting scent as the darkness and numbness of sleep finally took me under, allowing me to forget for just a couple of hours.
???
As I sat in the front row, facing the wooden coffin, it felt like everyone around me ran at a supernatural pace, while my whole world stood still, at an impasse, a huge part of it lying lifeless right in front of me.
The vibrant green of the grass contrasted with all the black worn by everyone who attended the funeral. How could the world still have color without him?
My wife sat to my right, as Jamie took the place on my left, her father Enzo soothing her sobs every time she broke down in tears.
She had been there, she had seen it all happen before her eyes. When we got to her, her hands were stained in blood but she was unable to identify who it belonged to. The destruction wasn’t too much to take in for experienced killers like me, but for the eyes of an innocent girl like Jamie it was more than she could handle. Everything that happened fused together, confusing all her memories in one big hurdle of terror and panic.
Alison was latched onto our father who tried to pick up the pieces of our broken little girl, who cried uncontrollably. Her eyes were stained red from the constant flow, that I could swear hadn’t stopped since she entered my apartment two days ago.
It was clear to everyone who knew her that she hadn’t eaten since.
Alison put on this front made of bravado and insolence, but only those who truly knew her could see the cracks under those layers of confidence. It almost sounded like I was talking about myself.
Apples and their fucking trees.
My baby sister was as much of a Battaglia as any of us, even though we never let her carry the weight that came with that name. Still it was carved in her rebellious nature as if we had put it there by force.
Not today. Today she was merely a shadow of herself.
Every single one of my men were here, paying their respects, as were all the capi from all the Mafiosi families under the Battaglia reign. Some of the Lords in the Commission came to pay their respects, too.
I counted every mafioso that had the decency to come. I especially counted the ones that didn’t bother.
Francesca’s family was here too, her brothers and her mother, and a ton of other people I couldn’t force myself to recognize.
