I haven’t been inside the study in the four weeks since the night Sergio didn’t come home. I’ve barricaded myself in this house, which I never had the chance to make my home. I wanted to. After everything, I wanted to make it a home. Our home.

I know it’s too early, but I think I feel the baby moving inside me. Feel the little swell of my belly. Ever since that night, I swear I’ve felt it. Him. It’ll be a boy. I know that too.

Sergio won’t see my belly swell as his baby grows. He won’t be there when his son comes into the world. Won’t get to hold him. I wonder if he’ll look like Sergio. In a way, I hope he doesn’t because I think it will break my heart over and over again and I’m not strong enough for that.

The house is silent. All the lights are out except for the one over the stove in the kitchen. Standing at the study door, I take a deep breath in, because there’s something I have to do. Something I have to finish.

I set my hand on the doorknob and turn it, hear the creak as I push the door open.

Instantly, I am overwhelmed by memories of him. By the scent of him. His aftershave. His whiskey. Overwhelmed by the weight of the life he carried. The shadow that clung to him, that kept him in its clutches. I remember all those moments when I’d felt that strange sensation that he wouldn’t be with me for long. That he was a ghost. That this thing would claim him. I’d pushed those thoughts away then. They were too terrible to deal with. But the reality, it’s worse because it’s just that—real. And final.

The skin around my eyes is wet again, but I ignore it and walk inside, partially closing the door behind me. Make my way to the desk from memory. Switch on the lamp. His chair is pushed out like he just got up from it. I touch it, the leather cool but soft and worn and comfortable as I sink into it.

The tumbler he last drank from still sits on the desk. The half-empty bottle beside it. I wrap my hand around the heavy crystal glass and bring it to me. To my nose. I inhale. I remember. And tears slide down my face and into the glass and I bring it to my lips and drink the last swallow of whiskey and the choking sound that comes, it’s my own. It’s my grief and I can’t swallow, my throat closes up. I want to throw up. But I don’t remember the last time I ate. I have to eat for the baby. I know.

I force a deep breath. Feel myself shudder with it. Feel the whiskey burn when it does, finally, go down. It reinforces me and I steel my spine because I have work to do.

Setting the empty tumbler down, I reach beneath the desk and feel for the scroll. I pull it out, unroll it, mechanically open it on the desktop and set the bottle on one corner, tuck the other beneath the base of the desk lamp.

I survey the images, the boxes, scanning the names as I open the drawer and take out his pencils, dulled by use, the eraser worn to a nub. I rub my thumb over it. Try to feel him.

Dragging my attention from the sheet, I search deeper in the drawer for a ruler. That’s when I come across the other sheet there. This one lies flat. I take it out, set it on top of the parchment so I can study it under the light of the lamp.

It’s me. My face. At least a partially sketched image. I see smudges from his effort to perfect what he saw, and I swear, I see it too. Like I’m laid bare here. Like he drew my soul.

I set my thumb over the print of his bigger one and smear it across my cheek, like he has before, and the moment I do, every hair on my body stands on end and all at once, he’s here. He’s here with me. Behind me. Holding me. One hand closed over mine, his thumb on mine, his other arm wrapped around my middle, hand flat on my belly, and that’s when that sobbing begins again except that this time, he’s holding me. He’s holding me as I fall apart. As I weep loudly, with a voice not my own, with anguish that can’t belong to me. That I don’t want.

“It’s not fair.”

It’s stupid, but it’s all I can say. Because it’s not. We were supposed to have time. We were supposed to have a little bit of time.

And I feel his arms squeezing me, cradling me against his chest, holding me so tight that for a minute, I just close my eyes and imagine it’s real. Imagine he’s real.

“Come back,” I sob.

He can’t, though. I know that. I watched them put him in the ground.

The high-pitched wailing is me, I realize. And even as I feel the feather light kisses on my temple, even as the hair on the back of my neck stand on end at his touch, I wail. Because this is it. This is goodbye.

I hear his words inside my mind. The whispered “I love you.” Feel one final squeeze of his arms, the flat of his hand on my belly. The scruff of his jaw on my cheek.

And when I’m able to breathe again, I whisper those words back as he slips away. Sergio gone. Sergio gone from me. Gone from this world forever.

I don’t know how long I sit there in the near dark staring at nothing. My face sticky from tears. My vision empty. It’s when I hear the lock of the front door open that I move. That I shift my gaze to the partially closed study door.

“Natalie.”

I startle. They sound so alike.

Footsteps approach the study and a moment later, the door is pushed open and Salvatore stands in the doorway and I realize the night is over because the warm glow of the morning sun surrounds him. It’s strange. Like a halo all around him.

He looks at me. I almost have to smile at what he must see. I haven’t showered in days. Haven’t brushed my hair in that long. I’m still wearing one of Sergio’s T-shirts I’d dug out of the laundry hamper.

Salvatore takes in the contents of the desk. Eyes the empty glass of whiskey. He steps inside.

“You don’t look so good, Nat.”

The way he says it, leaning against the door, taking off his gloves, one eyebrow raised and one side of his mouth quirking into a lopsided smile, it makes me smile, actually.

“Is that yours?” he asks, gesturing to the whiskey.

I shake my head. “It’s his.” I touch the pattern on the crystal. “Was his,” I correct.

He takes off his coat, sets it and the gloves over the back of the chair.

“You’re not drinking, are you? He wouldn’t want that. With the baby and all.”

“I’m not drinking.”

“Good. When’s the last time you ate?”

I shrug a shoulder.

“Called your parents? Called Drew?”

I shake my head. I don’t know. I know they’ve called. I’ve seen the countless messages but I switched off my phone a few days ago.

“Drew called me this morning. Said you haven’t been to school.”

“I don’t think school matters right now.”

“Well, it does.” He shifts his gaze to the parchment, steps closer to get a better look. Gives a shake of his head. “Fucking Sergio. Leave it to him to draw a fucking graveyard.”

When he reaches out to touch it, I put my hand out, stop him.

He looks at me. “Have you been outside since the funeral?”

“What are you doing here? Why do you have a key?”

“Because my brother made me promise something. One thing. If anything happened.”

Fuck. I’m going to lose it again.

Salvatore sits down, and a darkness shadows his features. “He called me one night after you two had met and told me if anything happened to him that I was to take care of you. Make sure you were okay.”

“He did?”

Salvatore nods.

“I think he knew. I know he did.” I say through sobs and tears. “He told me once that time was a luxury. One that he wouldn’t have.”

“Yeah, well, you know Sergio.”

Knew. Not know. Sergio is no longer present. He can never be spoken of in the present tense again.

“He was always a little dramatic,” Salvatore continues when I don’t speak.

He’s trying to make light of it. “Yeah. I guess.”

“What are you doing in here in the dark?”

“I have to finish it.”

“Finish what?”

I point to the place below Sergio’s name. Just beneath his box. The day of his birth. The dash. The empty space.

Salvatore nods. He stands and comes around the desk. “Let me do it.”

I roll my chair away. I let him. And I watch when he takes up the pencil and writes in the date.

He stares at it for a while and I look at him. At Salvatore Benedetti.

He’ll take Sergio’s place now. Next in line to rule.

Next in line to die?

“Do you ever get scared?” I ask.

He shifts his gaze to me.

“To die. Like he did,” I add. Again, my face crumples beneath the pain and I’m struggling to breathe.

He considers this for a long time. Takes in a deep breath. “Yeah. Sometimes. But then I think don’t I deserve it? I have blood on my hands, too.”

I know he does. I know after Sergio’s murder, the Benedetti family unleashed their wrath. They took vengeance for the death of the first-born son. And what a vengeance it was. What a brutal retribution.

“Did he really do that? Call you? Tell you to take care of me?”

Salvatore nods. “Drunk in the middle of the night.” He chuckles.

The silence that follows is awkward, suddenly. I shift my gaze to the sheet. Reach over to take the red marker. To draw the cross.

“Mob killing,” I say. And somehow, I don’t cry. I draw the cross carefully. Perfectly. I color it in. I take my time because once this part is done, there’s no erasing. Not that there ever was a going back. I know that.

“What are you going to do now?” he asks.

I look up at him. “Leave. I want nothing to do with your family.” I don’t apologize for it.

He nods.

“Will he let me go? Now? With the baby?”

He knows who I mean. “If what you want is out, I’ll make sure you’re out. I’ll protect you. I gave Sergio my word and I intend on keeping it.”

“Even against your father?” Because that’s what this would be. Franco Benedetti has no intention of letting me take Sergio’s baby and disappearing.

“Even against my father.”