Summer. Two years later.
The backyard was chaos—nine children screaming, laughing, running. Luca had grabbed the garden hose and turned tag into full-scale war. Ethan, even at fifteen, had organized teams with military precision.
“Defenders on the left! Attackers on the right!”
My little brother and I had been on Ethan’s team. The older boys let us win on purpose, pretending to fall dramatically when we sprayed them.
We collapsed afterward in a wet heap on the grass, devouring stolen popsicles. The six boys formed a loose circle around my sister, my brother, and me without even realizing it.
A living shield.
Luca—quiet, thoughtful Luca—had braided tiny yellow flowers into my hair while Nico told the worst jokes imaginable until we were gasping with laughter.
The house of nine children and two adults had felt indestructible.
Until I was fourteen.
Until the crash.
Until everything burned.
I woke one Saturday to silence.
Not the gentle kind that comes before dawn. Not the peaceful hush of a sleeping house.
A wrong silence.
No footsteps pounding down the staircase. No doors slamming. No Luca shouting that Ethan had stolen his shirt. No Nico arguing about whose turn it was to cook breakfast. No Dario’s deep voice corralling chaos into something that almost resembled order.
Just... nothing.
I padded down the hallway barefoot, heart already racing for reasons I couldn’t explain. The house felt hollow, like a body without a pulse.
Father stood alone in the kitchen.
He wasn’t cooking. Wasn’t reading the paper. Wasn’t even pretending normalcy.
He just stood there, hands braced on the counter, staring at the marble backsplash like it might offer him absolution.
“Where are they?” I signed instinctively, panic rising.
He didn’t look at my hands.
“They’re gone,” he said flatly.
Gone.
The word didn’t make sense.
“Gone where?” I whispered back then—I still had my voice at fourteen.
“Better opportunities,” he replied. “New York.”
No apology.
No explanation.
No goodbye note taped to my bedroom door.
