Page 44 of Fire and Silk

We made it to the clearance unit. He said,We’ll do one year. Then I’m done.

He wanted to go back to Melbourne, take night shifts, and support Lira while she finished her degree. Said she had dreams—Paris, Salzburg, film scores, orchestra life. Said she’d already given up enough to hold their little family together after Chiara passed.

And when Chiara did die...

Christ.

I didn’t cry in the church. Neither did Marco. We held it in like steel cables stretched tight.

But I heard him sob in the hotel room that night. The kind that comes from deep in the ribs. Like grief was trying to claw its way out of him.

“They’re gone, Mico,” he whispered, curled into the corner of the couch. “Both of them. Just me and her now.”

I wanted to quit the service with him. I told him we could figure it out, make it work. But I knew he needed the promotion.

Just one more year,I told him.Hold on for that. Then go home.

I thought I was helping.

But I wasn’t.

We were stationed off the Horn of Africa when it happened. Nothing special. A quiet patrol. Sky like a dull blade. The deck smelled of rust and oil. I was checking communications gear, half-tuned out, when the alarm blared—a short burst. I remember the way Marco moved—fast, fluid, always five seconds ahead. He climbed above deck to reroute the antennamanually while I looped around the port side. We thought it was a signal fault.

It wasn’t.

There was no warning. Just one sharp crack. Not an explosion. Just… a pop. Like someone slapping wood. I turned slowly. By the time I reached him, he was on the ground, blood streaked across the deck like spilled ink. One eye open. Breathing shallow.

He didn’t look at me. He looked past me. Like he was already slipping.

And then—barely audible, lips cracked, a whisper more than a voice—he said it.

“Please… take care of my Lira.”

Then nothing.

No dramatic gasp. No parting wisdom. Just that. His final plea.

I pressed my hand to the side of his skull, trying to stem the bleeding, but it was already done. He was already gone.

The medics called it a clean shot. Instant cerebral trauma. No pain, they said. But I didn’t believe them. You don’t die like that without leaving something behind.

After that, I couldn’t breathe right for weeks. I couldn't sleep. Couldn’t look at a violin case without feeling like my chest was cracking. The girl he begged me to protect was back home in a city I hadn’t seen in three years. And I hadn’t even written to her. Not once. Not after the funeral. Not after Chiara. Not after I signed my name next to Marco’s.

I used to think grief was sharp. A blade, something that split you open clean. But it isn’t. It’s slow. Heavy. Rotting. Like wet earth pressing down on your lungs until you forget what air tastes like.

I watched her fall apart piece by piece. From a distance. Always from a distance.

After Marco died, she didn’t cry at the funeral. She didn’t speak. She just stood there, spine rigid in that black dress, hands clasped so tight the knuckles went bloodless. I stood ten feet behind her the entire time, close enough to catch her if she collapsed—but not close enough to be seen. Not close enough to tempt fate.

Because if I went to her, she would look at me like I was something good. Like I could fix it. Like I was her last anchor.

And I wasn’t.

I wasn’t a hero. I was the reason her brother stayed one year too long. I was the voice that told him to wait. I was the one who watched the inheritance clause unfold like it was a story in a book and didn’t burn it to the ground. Every time I thought about putting my arms around her, all I could see was Marco’s face, blood in his mouth, whispering her name with his last breath.

So, I watched.

Watched as she moved through the city like a ghost, a violin case clutched to her chest like a shield. Watched as the light bled from her eyes, little by little. She stopped playing. Stopped answering calls. Moved out of the conservatory dorms and into a studio flat on the edge of Fitzroy that stank of incense and stale cigarettes. I told myself she was surviving. That she just needed time.