The world went silent.
Not quiet.
Not calm.
Silent in the way something breaks inside your head and everything after echoes.
I stared at him.
At my son—my youngest—my Emiliano.
Eight years old.
Small hands still gripping my arm like I might disappear if he let go.
“Say it again,” I said, my voice lower than I recognized.
He shook his head immediately, violently.
“I don’t want to.”
“Emi…”
“I don’t want to say it again, Dad!” he cried, his voice cracking. “It feels bad.”
That word—bad—was too small.
Too soft for what he had just told me.
I closed my eyes for a second.
Just one second.
And in that second, memories started rearranging themselves.
Marina’s voice that morning—too light.
Her perfume—stronger than usual.
The way she didn’t turn back at the airport.
The way she said don’t wait up.
The way she always knew exactly how to say things so they sounded normal.
Too normal.
I opened my eyes again.
“Okay,” I said quietly. “You don’t have to repeat it.”
He sniffed, wiping his face with his sleeve.
“Are you mad?” he asked.
“Mad?” I forced a breath out. “No.”
“Scared?”
That question.
That simple, honest question.
It cut deeper than anything else.
I looked at him.
Really looked at him.
And for the first time, I understood—
He wasn’t asking about me.
He was asking if he should be scared too.
I reached back and took his hand.
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted.
That was the truth.
And the truth felt like standing on the edge of something I couldn’t see the bottom of.
