“Mama,” it calls, small and high, the exact pitch that lives at the center of a man, whether he wants it or not. “Where did my blue truck go?”
Everything stops inside me. Not the way that happens under fire, not the clarity that comes when you decide which wall you will use to steady your aim. This is a halt with no command behind it. Lungs suspend. Hands forget corners. The hall narrows to a single line that runs from my chest to the top of those stairs.
I go up two steps without permission from my head. Lila moves to block, hand up, palm firm against my coat.
“Do not,” she warns.
The boy appears at the top with the truck in his hand. Dark hair falls in a fringe over his forehead. The toy is red with a silver stripe. He grips it like it matters more than adults understand. He is small enough to disappear behind a doorframe and old enough to know this is his house.
His gaze drops down the stairs and finds me. I have seen that face before—in the mirror on mornings I tried not to look toolong. The same set to the chin, the same mouth tightening as it thinks. The boy does not spook. He measures, his mouth tightens in just the same way. He is measuring me now.
“Hi,” he says, voice careful.
My throat closes like someone has put a hand on it. Words live behind my teeth. They do not come out. I nod once. It is all I have.
Lila steps up one step, half in front of me, half turned toward him. “Back to your room, baby,” she instructs, tone light and iron at once. “I’m coming in a minute.”
His eyes flick to her, then back to me, then to the toy in his hand, like he is calculating whether the truck has a role in this new math. He slides the wheels along the banister and makes a small sound that is more concentration than play.
“Who is he?” he asks.
“A friend,” Lila answers.
“He’s big.”
“He’s leaving.”
The boy considers that. He looks at my shoes. He looks at my hands. He looks once at my face as if he needs to memorize a picture he finds interesting.
“I have to find the blue truck,” he explains to me like a man who has to finish his job.
“You will find it,” I manage, my voice not as steady as I require, low enough that Lila could pretend she did not hear me.
He nods as if we have entered a contract, then steps back from the landing and vanishes. His small footsteps make a pattern that sounds like a path he knows by heart.
Lila does not drop her hand from my coat until he is gone. Then she lowers it and looks up at me. Her face tells me everything she has been trying to keep inside a box I was not supposed to open.
“Do not push,” she orders, voice thin.
“I am not pushing,” I reply, though my entire body wants to walk past her and up into a room where a small truck lives on a windowsill.
“You moved two steps.”
“That is not a push.”
“It is for me,” she returns. She releases a breath, hand to the rail, eyes closed once. When they open, she is the woman who can run a counter and own a runway.
“Enough for now,” she concludes. “Matteo, finish your toys.”
I move back down the steps. I do not argue, not here, not now. Lila walks ahead of me to the kitchen. Her shoulders are tight in a way that makes me want to put a hand there and also makes me understand I will not. She tucks her hair again.
“Cameras are done,” I report. “The feed runs to a unit in the pantry and to my phone. Anything feels off, call me. No second guessing.”
“I won’t be calling.”
“I know, but still,” I answer.
She stands by the prep table with both hands flat on the stainless steel and stares at a tray of cooling shells like she can keep time from moving if she glares hard enough. I hold her gaze for one second longer than I should. It is a mistake I choose. She does not look away. Her eyes are wet and dry in a way I respect.
