The lull settles in with a shape. The bakery hums softly with cooling metal and the tick of heat fading. The mixer sits clean. The oven is off and warm, like a body after work. Lila rinses a bowl and sets it upside down to dry. She leans against the counter, hip turned to the light, eyes steady.
The air smells of chocolate and cinnamon, a trace of strawberry where the syrup spilled, almost vanilla where the flour hangs. They hold her the way memory holds a song, by touch more than words.
She looks at the door, calm. Too calm. The light touches her face, and for a second, I see it, the reflection of a window boarded, the crack through her roof sending a faint recoil through her shoulders. The stillness that remembers more. I stand where I can see her and let the smells and silence draw their lines back to her strength, to the boy upstairs, to this room that feels almost ordinary. Almost.
Outside, snow draws a skin over the street again, thin and new. The square settles into the hour for paper boys and men who cannot sleep with what they have done. I lean my shoulder on the jamb between the kitchen and the hall and let my thoughts step out of line for a moment.
The thing that sucks about this life is not the blood. It is not the noise. It is not even the waiting. It is the hollow it cuts. You stay back from what you want because getting close makes it real, and real things break. You spend years making the wrong moves, and then you walk into a bakery to stamp out a rag fire, and a child laughs upstairs, and you realize you have lived the last decade like a man behind glass.
I want ordinary. I want to argue about the price of flour and when to open the door. I want to curse the heater on the landing and the third stair that says my name every time I step on it. I want to stand here and be bored while dough rises. I want to take the boy to the park, push a sled, and forget that I ever learned to read danger by the tilt of a shoulder in a mirror.
I am not allowed those things, not tonight. I straighten and push the want down deep, where it will stay still. Lila watches me stand up from that thought. She has always been too good at seeing the shift. “You’re somewhere else,” she says, gentle.
“I am here,” I answer.
My phone vibrates against my bone. A single buzz for Petro. I answer with the first ring.
“Report,” I say.
“South end of Main,” he replies. “Far turn by the pharmacy loading bay. Headlights off. It’s the same SUV. Crawling.”
The room seems to pull tight around the words. Lila sets her cup down without looking at it. Maria moves to the stairs and stops with a hand on the banister.
“Describe,” I tell him.
Petro reports, voice steady. “Driver low on the wheel. Bus transfer slip on the dash as cover. It’s creeping like it’s looking for a number on a house. Two silhouettes. Windows up. No snow on the hood.”
“Direction,” I ask.
“It’s facing the square,” he says. “Five miles an hour. Less.”
“Hold position,” I instruct. “Do not engage. Give me the crawl. Every ten seconds.”
“Ten,” he says. “It’s passing the guide kiosk. Nine. It’s aligning with the church hall.”
I pocket the phone on speaker, volume low, so Lila can hear it and know I am not lying to her. My hand closes around my coat.I check the holster by touch. It is a habit, yes, even a comfort. It could be a promise.
I look at Lila. “I will take the alley,” I tell her. “You stay with your mother and the boy. Chain on. Cord ready. If anything moves, you pull without thinking.”
She nods. “You’ll call when it’s clear,” she says. “Not because I need a report, because I’d rather not guess which fool decided to test your patience tonight.”
“Eight,” Petro’s voice says from my pocket. “It’s at the florist.”
I move to the back door and put my palm on the cold knob. The snow outside reflects just enough light to give shapes a skin.
“Seven,” Petro says. “It’s rolling under the church lights. Six.”
25
LILA
Iwake to warm light and the small sounds of people I love just… existing. Marco’s tucked against my side, hat half off, cheeks pink from sleep. My mother’s cot sits an arm’s length away, the quilt she dragged in last night folded neatly at the foot as though she closed her eyes “for a minute” and stayed. For once, the room feels arranged by comfort, not contingency. I lie still and watch Marco dream, the strong line of his brows softened in sleep, a brush of dark brown hair falling in a soft fringe across his forehead.
Somewhere between two and three last night, Matteo came back. I waited in the kitchen, the light low, questions sitting in my throat. He stepped through the door, snow in his hair, eyes tired but clear. He looked up at me first. He didn’t speak, just a small nod between us, enough to say it’s safe. I went upstairs to my boy. From the landing, I heard the door close, the quiet settling that meant he was at his post, where he could watch the doors and the sidewalk. I’ve learned its meanings, the stillness that comes when someone has taken the night for you.
It’s morning now, Christmas Eve, and the light has no patience for sleep. In a town like this, staying in bed feels like a small sin.
Christmas Eve in Wrenleigh has its own hum. When I open the upstairs window an inch, the street carries it up to me—kids pelting each other with fluff-snow, a truck’s chains biting the road near the square, Mrs. Nolan calling hello without waiting for an answer. The sky’s a low milk-white, softening the edges and making the lights glow brighter. Red paper bows in shop windows. Icicle strands blinking on porches as if they’ve got their own heartbeat. For a second, it’s the town I remember, without the shadows we keep counting.
