Page 1 of Marcus

Black everywhere.

A sea of black, really.

Cella Marcello felt like everything had become painted with the color. Tainted. Maybe that was the better word for this day and what was happening. Everything was tainted with blackness because wasn’t that the only appropriate hue for grief?

Especially grief like this.

One so hollow.

Empty.

Lonely.

From the suits and dresses surrounding her, worn by people with faces she recognized and—some—she loved to even the clouds above her head. Her emotions. The hole in the ground. The shiny granite headstone with her husband’s name carved with white lettering.

All black.

She saw other colors, of course. The green of the grass, and the gray of the sky. The light rain from earlier in the day left a mist in the air, curling up from the ground and disappearing all around her. A few people dared to wear shades of gray and even navy blues for the day instead of the standard black clothing that accompanied funerals. The silver bangles on her wrist jingled with her trembling, and it didn’t seem to matter how tight she held her child, the shaking didn’t relent.

If anything, it became worse.

How much longer could she hold it in?

How long would it be before she could breathe?

“Want me to take her?”

Cella looked to the side, peering through the black veil that hung down from the rim of her large hat, finding her mother trying to offer her a smile. It didn’t reach Jordyn’s wet eyes, and there in the glistening tears, she found her own reflection. She looked like her mother—soft-featured, round face, a small, sloped nose, high cheekbones, and full lips shaped like a curvy bow. All her sisters, the two of them, took after their mother whereas their brother, John, looked far more like their father.

Except right then, all Cella saw in the reflection was her sadness. How despite the fact that her eyes felt so dry, as though she’d cried far too many tears and couldn’t produce more, wetness still coated her cheeks. She found pain there.

Only pain.

“Cella?” her ma asked again.

She shook her head and tightened her hold on eight-month-old Tiffany when the baby squirmed a bit under her thin cotton blanket. Surely, the girl didn’t need a blanket in this August heat, but with the occasional rain and slight breeze, she didn’t want to take a chance. So, she wrapped her up.

Because that was the thing.

It didn’t matter her husband was dead.

It didn’t matter that she didn’t want to get out of bed.

That her heart broke.

She was empty.

Life had stopped.

None of that could matter to Cella when she was still a mother. Her child depended on her constantly. Sure, Tiffany didn’t understand why when she called out for Dada in the mornings, William wasn’t there to pull her from her crib for their daily routine, but she made do with her mother. No doubt, she thought her father would be back—he would never be back—but she still had her ma.

And that left Cella to do everything when all she wanted was to do nothing. Except life didn’t work that way. And this wasn’t Tiffany’s fault.

So, she put on her fake smile for her child day in and day out. She tried not to cry in front of her as much as she could, because then the baby would wipe away her mother’s tears, and nothing felt worse than that.

She kept on going. Moving forward. The world continued turning. It was just hers that felt dead now.

“Pretty girl,” Cella’s older sister, Liliana, said as she reached out to fluff the bottom of her pretty summer dress that had peeked out from beneath the blanket. “Just a few more minutes, Tiff, okay?”