Page 73 of My Best Friend Is Broken

As he stares at me, some of his sadness seems to leach away. Not because the grief is any less, but because it’s shared now. Because he doesn’t have to carry it alone.

I loved his mother probably as much as he did. She was a wonderful woman who warmly took on the mother figure I so badly needed in my life. When my dad was too caught up in his new relationship to notice his son was struggling, and my mother nothing more than a hazy memory after choosing drug addiction over her child, Marianna Ricci made sure I had a place at her dinner table and a listening ear when I needed it.

The world is a darker place without her in it.

“I’d like that,” Nicky says, his voice weak but grateful.

We stop at a florist on the way to the cemetery. Nicky stands for a long time in front of the display of arrangements, his face carefully neutral but his hands shaking slightly as he considers the options.

“She always loved sunflowers,” I say quietly, pointing to a simple but beautiful arrangement. “Said they reminded her of summers in Italy when she was a child.”

“You remember that?”

“I remember everything about her. She was...” I pause, trying to find words for what Marianna meant to me. “She was the first person who ever made me feel like I mattered. Like I was worth caring about just for being me.”

Nicky’s eyes fill with tears, but he manages a small smile. “She used to say you were the son God sent her, and I was the son God gave her.”

The words hit me like a punch to the chest. “She said that?”

“All the time. Even after...” He trails off, but I know what he means. Even after I went to prison. Even after I became someone she should be ashamed of.

We buy the sunflowers and drive to Lambeth Cemetery in comfortable silence. The December air is sharp andcold, our breath visible in small puffs as we walk through the rows of headstones. Nicky leads the way with the confidence of someone who’s made this journey many times before.

Marianna’s grave is simple but well-maintained, a modest headstone in dark granite with her name and dates, and below that, a single line. ‘Beloved mother, taken too soon.’

Nicky kneels to place the sunflowers at the base of the headstone, his movements careful and reverent. I stand behind him, hands in my pockets, and feel the familiar weight of loss settle over me like a blanket.

“I miss her,” I say quietly.

“Me too.” Nicky’s voice is thick with emotion. “Every day. There are still moments when I want to call her, tell her about something that happened or ask her advice about something.”

“What would you tell her today?”

He considers this seriously. “That you’re doing better. That we’re figuring things out. That you got a job and you’re learning Italian and you’re starting to look like yourself again.” He pauses. “That I’m happy, even when days like today remind me how much we’ve lost.”

I kneel beside him, brushing a few fallen leaves away from the base of the headstone. “She would be proud of you. Of the man you’ve become, the way you’ve taken care of me.”

“Would she? I’ve done things since she died, Liam. Things she wouldn’t approve of.”

The weight in his voice tells me he’s thinking about his work, about the violence that’s become part of his dailylife. About the choices he’s made that have led him further into a world his mother hoped he’d avoid.

“She would understand,” I say firmly.

We sit in silence for a while, both lost in our own memories of the woman who shaped us in ways we’re still discovering. The cemetery is quiet except for the distant sound of traffic and the occasional rustle of wind through the bare trees.

“Liam,” Nicky says eventually, his voice hesitant. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Why didn’t you ever write back?”

The question hits me like ice water. “What?”

“Mum wrote to you. Every week for the first two years of your sentence. She never told me what she said in the letters, but she always hoped you’d write back. She kept checking the post, kept asking if maybe your letters were getting lost somehow.”

The guilt crashes over me like a wave. “She wrote to me?” I stutter, and it comes out sounding like a question.

“You didn’t know?”