His jaw set, the line hard and familiar.His voice was calm, certain, and unshakable.
“I’ve decided.I’m going to fight in the American War of Independence.”
The world tilted.My heart seized.
“No!”The word escaped me like a wound torn open.
“You can’t go.I forbid you.”
Desperation, raw and primal, surged to the surface—an attempt to hold back the tide, to assert the only power I had left—the power to protect him.
“Mother!I must!”Roman’s eyes flashed, his voice, a mirror of Amir’s battle cry.“It’s my duty.”
My heart twisted, and the ache that had long since nestled there clawed its way up my throat.Amir’s words reverberated in my mind, melding with Lee’s—voices of destiny, of paths one must walk alone.
“Roman,” I began, my voice softer now, laced with fear.“Please, understand that…”
But I saw it in his eyes—the same unyielding fire that lived in Amir, a flame no plea could extinguish.This was destiny, pulling at the threads of our lives, weaving a tapestry I could neither predict nor prevent.
He was stepping onto a path that would change everything, a journey that might alter our family forever.And as I looked at him—like the man whose absence hollowed our world—I knew I could no more restrain him than stop the earth from turning.
“Your duty…” I whispered, resignation settling over me like a shroud.“Just like your father.”
“I am nothing like my father,” he hissed.“I won’t abandon my duties or ignore those I love.”
I saw it then—not just Amir’s likeness in him but his legacy, too—a legacy of honor bound by something greater than us all.
I let out a broken breath, wishing my deceit hadn’t worked so well.
Roman loathed his father.
His hand, firm yet gentle, closed around mine, stilling the tremble that had begun as I worked the needle through the fine fabric.
“Mother,” he said, his voice filled with conviction, echoing from some deep, immovable place within him.“I know you’re scared.You’re afraid you’ll lose me.But I have to fight—for something bigger than myself.”
His words struck like cold water, jolting me back to a reality I wanted to deny.My eyes, blurred by tears, met his—so familiar, yet resolutely his own.
“I have lost so much already,” I choked, the pain of years past clawing at my throat.“Your twin brother...I lost him.I’ve lost family.Roman, I can’t—” My voice broke.“I can’t bear the thought of losing you too.”
Silence.Then?—
“Wait, what?”
His confusion was palpable.
“Twin brother?”
I froze.The memories I had buried beneath years of silence clawed their way free, rising like ghosts between us.The secret I had guarded with my life now hovered in the space between us, a truth I could never take back.
“Never mind,” I murmured, the words brittle, meaningless.
But it was too late.
Roman didn’t let it go.
“No, Mother—wait.What is this about a twin?”His gentle but unrelenting voice pressed for an answer I had never meant to give.
I swallowed hard, my heart pounding as though it could beat the truth back down.“Long ago, in a world that feels lifetimes away and as close as yesterday, I went to the New World.I had a baby—a boy, your brother.There were two of you.”The words tore from me, raw and bleeding.“He didn’t make it, Roman.He never took a breath in this world.”
