Page 40 of Accidental Alliance

Matteo bounces on the balls of his feet while waiting for the game to resume. There is dirt smeared over one knee and one of his socks has already disappeared inside his cleat. One shoelace is threatening to come undone, but he doesn’t pay it any attention before he surges forward toward the ball as soon as the referee’s whistle blows.

His father would have loved watching him like this.

The thought arrives uninvited, and for a moment I hate myself for even thinking it. I hate him for still existing anywhere inside me after all these years.

For surfacing to my memory in fragments when Matteo runs a certain way or tilts his chin in a flash of defiance or grins after winning as if victory is his birthright.

It is not fair, the resemblance they share.

I cup my hands around my mouth and call his name with the same easy warmth as always. “Go, Teo!”

All the while, my eyes stay trained on the parking lot, following a black SUV with dark tinted windows pulling in from the street.

I wonder if this is how it begins, this new version of survival. Not with running immediately from gunfire or screams after an explosion, but with the quiet corrosion of everything slowly beginning to feel unsettled.

Is this how I will feel now?

Living with the inability to watch a soccer game without mapping an exit strategy or chatting with another mother without wondering how quickly I could get Matteo to the car if I had to? Will I no longer be able to hear my son laugh without feeling terror twine through the love that continues to make my heart beat?

I hate most of all that fear is trying to taint even something as small as that.

When the game finally ends, I bend to pick up my lawn chair and shake the damp grass from its metal feet before folding it back into its slip.

Around me, the field dissolves into the familiar post-game chaos with coaches calling out reminders for next Saturday’s start time.

Children race in circles, somehow finding a second wind the moment the final whistle blows. Parents gather discarded sweatshirts and cleats and half-empty water bottles, calling names into the warm afternoon air.

I hear Matteo running toward me before I see him. His footsteps are quick and uneven over the grass, his voice reaching me while he is still halfway across the field, already tumbling through words too fast for his breathing to keep up.

“See that, Mom? Two goals on my own! And Luca said the second one was way better because I kicked it from farther out and Coach even said if I keep practicing my left foot, I’m gonna be impossible to block and Tyler only got one and…” His arms wrap around my waist in the next second, his whole body colliding with mine hard enough to nearly knock me off balance.

A startled laugh leaves me before I can stop it. I plant my foot more firmly into the grass and catch him against me, dropping the folded chair to my side so I can hug him properly.

He is warm and sweaty and breathing hard, his jersey damp at the back, his skin smelling like grass and dirt.

I hold him tighter than I mean to, too tight, maybe. But he only squeezes me harder in return, still buzzing with an uncomplicated joy most adults spend their whole lives trying to find.

When I pull back enough to look at him, I brush his damp hair away from his forehead. It springs right back down, as always.

“I saw. You’re unstoppable, baby,” I tell him, smiling despite the ache in my chest.

He beams up at me.

For a second, it is all open delight, his whole face lit from within, bright and warm and innocent as the morning sun.

Then something changes. It is subtle, so subtle, most people would miss it. But Matteo is not most people. He has my eyes and far too much of my mind behind them.

That unnervingly perceptive stare of his flickers to my smile. His eyes narrow slightly, taking me in with a focus too hardened for a seven-year-old and somehow entirely natural for him.

He has always noticed what I wish he would not.

Unfortunately, my son did not only inherit his father’s face and stubbornness. He inherited me too.

“You okay, Mom?” The question is soft, almost casual, but I hear the real thing underneath it. He knows something is off.

I force my smile to widen, careful not to overdo it. “Of course I am.”

The lie comes easily and I hate that it does. I shouldn’t have to put on a front when it comes to my son. Especially when I feel the walls slowly closing in around us with no way out.