Marco squares his shoulders. “I kept my staff up so nobody tripped.”
“You did,” I echo, and my voice goes messier than I meant. The picture in my head is the same as his and not quite the same—flames kissing brick, that jingle giving us a warning in the middle of noise, chairs falling into place like they knew how to help, a broom biting into a ribcage, orange cones turning a stampede into a line. And him. Always where I needed him, even when I didn't know I would.
Marco plucks at the bandage on Matteo’s hand. “This is from when the bad man tried to scratch you with a pocket knife.”
“Knife,” Maria corrects, but softly, because today isn’t for scolding nouns.
Matteo lifts his hand. “It looks worse than it is,” he says. “It will be gone in a week.”
Marco looks up from Matteo’s hand, his lower lip caught between his teeth. He traces the edge of the bandage. “Can we keep the star there anyway?”
Matteo glances at me before he answers. “We will keep it,” he says, and for a second, the room tilts toward some future I’m afraid to name.
Breakfast settles into the kind of chatter that only comes after a night survived. Maria says the church ladies will be retelling the ladder story for the next ten years. I stack plates, the clink of porcelain steadying the room. Matteo stands to pour coffee. His fingers brush the lock, checking it and not checking it, each motion perfectly ordinary—and not at all.
I catch his sleeve at the sink. “In the kitchen,” I say under the water, keeping it just for him, “you turned chaos into a map. Every chair, every cone. You built an exit.”
He shrugs one shoulder. “A straight line invites a sprint,” he says. “We broke lines.”
“You made me a way out,” I say, clearer. “On purpose.”
“I did.” There's no pride in it, only fact. “You were the target. I changed the board.”
My throat tightens. “Thank you,” I tell him. It lands heavier than two words should. He absorbs it like he's got practice with things that press.
“Did you build a team of chess pieces,” I ask, “that moved just right when the moment came?”
He tilts his head, a slow smile spreading as he pours more tea. “That is strategy,” he says, voice smooth as syrup.
Steam curls between us. I stare at him over my cup, the warmth rising slow and certain until it fills the space like light that knows where to fall.
Marco climbs back onto his lap with a clatter of chair legs and elbows and announces, “I dreamed Santa asked if I wanted a dad or a sled, and I said sled because I already have a papa.” He says it like he’s reporting the snowfall.
The room goes too still. Matteo doesn’t smile. He changes in a smaller way. He folds the boy in, chin resting in his hair, and closes his eyes for half a second. When he speaks, the words are careful. “We will find a sled,” he says. “We will make a hill.”
“You’ll push?” Marco asks.
“I will push,” Matteo answers. It sounds like a promise.
I sit and let myself look at them without flinching. Whatever we are is different than yesterday. It isn’t safe yet. It’s real.
We clear the dishes. Marco brings the book back, flips pages until he finds the snowman again, then starts telling the story himself, adding a shepherd who knows how to listen and a woman in a red coat who never gets lost. He sticks the staff against the table leg and scolds it for trying to run. Maria hums and ties on an apron. I reach for my ringless hand and still it.
The morning stretches, calm and forgiving. Before long, people will stop by with casseroles, gossip, and their version of the fight. The square will find its order again, the hall will breathe in light. I will return, sweep up the glass, and call the carpenter to mend the kitchen window so the next morning can come through clean.
For now, there’s butter on bread and a boy glued to a man who once felt like a fault line, and this new, uneasy thing I can only call trust is starting to take root. I don’t push it away.
We read Marco’s storybooks until the pages grow soft, then let the television hum with old Christmas movies while the kettle sings. By noon, the sun brightens the snow to sugar. We pack sandwiches and cocoa in a picnic basket and walk to the riverside bench. Marco builds a snow fort around a half-finished snowman and crowns it with pinecones. The bakery’s closed, the church bells are quiet, and the world’s folded in light and peace.
By four we’re back home, cheeks flushed, boots leaving puddles by the door. Maria warms cider on the stove, the house smelling of apples and cloves. Marco curls under a quilt with his toy train, and the world feels safely small again.
His phone trills sharply, cutting through the soft clink of dishes and Marco’s soft laugh. It shatters my thoughts, scattering them like pieces of Lego before I can gather what they were becoming.
Matteo lifts his head, wipes his hand on a towel, and crosses to the counter. One glance at the screen, and his face shifts from soft to unreadable in a heartbeat.
“Who is it?” I ask, my pulse quickening.
He turns the phone so I can see.
