***
Damien
The engine purred to life, the low growl thrumming through my palms, into the bones of my chest.
Even the DB11’s power couldn’t drown the hollowness inside me.
I’d messaged Emma that morning—and spent the rest of the day at war with her silence.
Each notification that lit my phone was a spark of hope burning out too quickly, leaving only the smoke of disappointment behind.
By evening, the void had become familiar—sharp around the edges, echoing with everything I hadn’t said.
But tonight wasn’t about me. My mother deserved celebration, not the wreckage I’d become. It was her birthday.
Every year since I’d moved her to New York, I’d taken her to the same steakhouse—the same corner booth, the same order: porterhouse for two, a mountain of sides she never finished but always insisted on ordering anyway.
The streets teemed with Saturday-night noise—laughter spilling from car windows, puddles flashing with neon—but my mind stayed fixed on Emma.
On the tears that had carved lines down her cheeks.
On the devastation written across her face when she’d looked at me like I was a stranger wearing my own skin.
My hands tightened around the wheel.
Shame burned through me—settled low in my gut like something rotting, spread up through my chest until I could taste it at the back of my throat.
Copper and ash.
The flavor of a man who’d ruined the only thing he wanted.
The engine idled low as I pulled into the drive. Her house—white stone, brass fixtures catching the last light of day—waited like a memory I’d built with my own hands.
Seven years ago, I’d bought it for her when her health began to falter. She’d refused every larger place I’d shown her until this one—with its small garden and its roses she still tended herself.
Even before I reached the door, the familiar chaos bled through:
the TV blaring some home-renovation show, Rosie shouting into a speakerphone, drawers slamming somewhere deeper inside.
I knocked—loudly.
The sound reverberated through the solid oak, echoing down the empty street.
No answer. The TV rattled against the windows.
I knocked again, harder, my knuckles stinging from the impact. Still nothing.
Sighing, I pulled out my phone and called her. Inside, the ringtone cut through the blare like a dying bird.
“Dianne, let me go—Damien’s calling,” came her muffled voice.
A pause, then frustration: “How do I switch the calls?”
Then—clear and triumphant—”Figlio mio!How far out are you? I’m starving.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Happy birthday, Mom. I’m outside.”
“What? Why didn’t you knock?”
