Prologue
My room is quiet. It’s always quiet. I make sure of that.
No noise. No distractions. No reminders of the chaos I spend my life controlling. In here, everything is exactly where it should be. Clean. Ordered. Untouched.
Safe.
I sit on the edge of the bed, sleeves rolled, my phone heavy in my hand. It weighs more than it should.
It always does when I bring myself to watch the videos.
For a long moment, I just stare at the screen.
Then I press play and laughter fills the room.
Small. Bright. Alive.
It hits me in the chest harder than any bullet ever could.
My daughter, my precious girl, stands on a chair at the kitchen counter, a mixing bowl nearly as big as she is clutched in her tiny arms. Flour dusts her cheeks, streaked across her skin like war paint.
“Mamma, I’m doing it!”
“Youaredoing it,” her mother says, laughing softly. “But maybe a little slower,sì? We don’t need the whole kitchen covered tonight.”
“We do!” she argues.
I almost smile.
My wife looks toward me… toward the camera… and her expression softens.
“Are you just going to stand there and watch, or are you going to help,amore?”
I remember this.
I remember standing there, leaning against the counter, watching them like it was the only thing in the world that mattered.
Maybe it was.
“Papa!” my daughter calls, looking straight at me through the screen. “We’re making pancakes! For dinner!”
Pancakes.
Not pasta. Not anything that makes sense in this Italian household.
Just pancakes.
Every Saturday.
I told her it was wrong. That we were Italian. That pancakes weren’t dinner.
She told me I was wrong.
She knew this without a shadow of doubt because she was five and always right.
My chest tightens as I watch the scene unfold.
My daughter’s laughter. My wife’s voice. The sound of something I can’t have anymore, filling a room that was never meant to hold it.
