“Alina?” Raffaele is instantly alert beside me, his hand hovering above my shoulder, careful not to touch my injuries. His voice cuts through the lingering tendrils of the nightmare, anchoring me to reality. “Breathe, Mogliettina. Just breathe.”
I gasp for air, my chest heaving as tears stream hot and uncontrolled down my face. Moonlight filters through the gauzy curtains, casting silvery patterns across our naked bodies.
The nakedness was my choice. When we got into bed, I needed my husband’s skin against mine after days of sterile hospital sheets and the barrier of clothing.
“I’m s-sorry,” I manage, my voice cracking. “Bad dream.”
Raffaele shifts closer, his body radiating heat like a furnace. He doesn’t touch me yet, waiting for permission, reading my needs with an intensity that still takes my breath away.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he coos like he’s speaking to a frightened animal.
The nightmare clings to me like cobwebs, impossible to brush away. My mom’s face, twisted in pain, merging with Andrea’s shocked expression as the knife slid home. Two deaths. Two lives ended by my hand.
One from love, one from desperation.
But both by my hand.
“It was about my mom,” I whisper, the words burning my throat like acid.
Raffaele’s expression softens further, his hand finally coming to rest on my cheek, thumb brushing away tears with exquisite care. “Tell me about it,” he urges.
The tenderness in those two words breaks something loose inside me—a dam I’ve built around my deepest secret, the one thing I’ve never spoken aloud to another soul. The weight of it suddenly feels unbearable, pressing against my ribs until I can barely breathe.
“I killed her,” I whisper, the confession hanging in the moonlit air between us. Raffaele’s expression doesn’t change, but his thumb pauses momentarily against my skin. “I killed my mom.”
He says nothing, waiting for me to continue. Not judging, not recoiling, just listening with those intense green eyes that see everything.
“She had ALS,” I state, even though I know he’s aware. But the words won’t be contained. “Do you know what that is? Like, the reality of it? It’s when the nerves that control your muscles shut down, and your body wastes away until you can’t move, can’t swallow, can’t breathe. But your mind stays sharp, trapped inside a body that’s failing piece by piece.”
At least that’s how the doctor explained it to me and Mom.
My voice shakes, but I push on. “By January, she could barely speak. Her lungs were starting to fail. We both knew what was coming. She knew she’d eventually be unable to speak, to eat, maybe even to blink. Just trapped in her body until her lungs finally gave out.”
Raffaele’s arm slides beneath my neck, drawing me closer with infinite gentleness, mindful of my injuries. “She asked you to do it,” he says softly. It’s not a question.
I nod, wincing as the movement sends fresh pain through my head. “In February. Ten days before she died. She begged me, Raffaele. Said she couldn’t bear becoming less than herself, couldn’t stand the thought of drowning in her own fluids while machines kept her alive.”
My good hand finds his chest, fingers splaying across the warm skin, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart. The solid proof of life beneath my palm steadies me.
“She was in hospice care by then. There were… medications. For pain, for anxiety. Morphine, mostly.” The words come harder now, sticking in my throat like shards of glass. “She told me how to do it. How to increase her dosage when the nurses weren’t there. How to make it look like her breathing just stopped on its own.”
Tears fall freely now. “She was having a bad day.Reallybad. She couldn’t catch her breath, kept panicking. I’d never seen her so scared.” My voice drops to a whisper. “She looked at me, and I knew it was time. So I… I gave her enough morphine to stop her breathing. I sat with her, held her hand while she slipped away.”
The confession hangs in the air, the secret I’ve carried alone for so long is finally exposed. I brace myself for… what? Disgust? Horror? Rejection? But Raffaele’s expression shows none of these things. Instead, his eyes hold something like understanding, like respect.
“You loved her enough to give her peace,” he says finally, his voice low and certain. “Do you know how strong you are? How brave?”
His words are so unexpected that fresh tears spill over. “I’ve never told anyone,” I admit. “I was so afraid of what people would think. That they’d see me as a monster.”
“A monster?” Raffaele’s laugh is soft, without humor. “No, Mogliettina. I know monsters. I’ve made deals with them. Fuck,I am one. But what you did was an act of mercy, of love so deep most people couldn’t comprehend it.”
His fingers trace the edge of my bandage with feather-light touches. “That’s who you are, Alina. Someone who loves so fiercely you’d shoulder unimaginable pain to spare others suffering. I saw it in you from the beginning.”
I shift carefully as I press myself against the solid wall of his chest. The position should be uncomfortable with my injuries. But being skin-to-skin with my husband feels like the first right thing since I woke up in that hospital bed.
“You did nothing wrong,” he croons. “I’m sorry you had to do it, but I’m proud of you.”
I want to bask in his words, let them soothe me. But I need to make one last confession first.
