Chapter 8 - The Long Night
The rest of Saturday blurred into a cold, miserable eternity.
I stayed in the guest suite, refusing to come down for dinner. Mrs. Gable brought up a tray of chicken soup and dry toast around 7:00 PM, her old eyes looking at me with quiet, sympathetic understanding.
“He’s a fool, dear,” she murmured, setting the tray on the nightstand. “Mr. Moretti loves those boys more than his own life. He just doesn't know how to love anything else without feeling like he’s inviting death into the room.”
“That’s his problem to fix, Mrs. Gable, not mine,” I replied, staring out the window at the dark, sprawling lawns below.
Around 10:00 PM, a soft tap sounded at my door.
I opened it, expecting Mrs. Gable with more tea. Instead, standing in the hallway in his pyjamas, holding a crumpled, stuffed blue elephant with a missing ear, was Dominic.
The six-year-old looked tiny, vulnerable, and completely exhausted.
“Dominic?” I whispered, crouching down to his eye level. “What are you doing up? Is everything okay?”
“Mason and Leo are asleep,” Dominic whispered back, clutching his stuffed elephant tightly against his chest. His big gray eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “Can... can I come in?”
My chest tightened. I couldn't say no.
I stepped aside and held the door wide open. Dominic scurried into the room, climbing awkwardly up onto the edge of the large guest bed and pulling his knees up to his chin. I sat down beside him, not pushing him, just letting him borrow my presence.
“My mom used to read to us,” Dominic said quietly, staring down at the floral bedspread. “Before the car crash. She read The Little Prince. Every night.”
“Do you miss her?” I asked softly.
Dominic nodded, a single tear escaping and tracking down his dusty cheek. “Dad doesn't talk about her. He took all her pictures down from the hallways. Sometimes I forget what her voice sounded like. I’m scared that if I forget too much, she’ll be gone forever.”
The grief in his small voice broke something inside my chest. It was the same grief I felt every time Lily asked why Daddy wasn't coming home for her birthday.
I wrapped my arm around Dominic’s small shoulders, pulling him against my side. He didn't resist; he buried his face in my shoulder and let out a quiet, trembling sob that he had probably been holding onto for four years.
“She’s not gone, Dom,” I whispered into his hair, my own eyes burning with hot tears. “When someone loves you, that love doesn't just disappear when they die. It lives in the way you laugh, the way you care for your brothers, and the memories your father keeps locked away in his heart—even if he’s too scared to look at them.”
We sat like that for a long time—just a grieving mother and a motherless child, finding warmth in the middle of a cold, stone fortress.
Eventually, Dominic’s breathing slowed down, his little body growing heavy against mine as he drifted off to sleep.
I carefully laid him down on the pillows, pulling the duvet up over his shoulders. As I stood up to adjust the lamp, the bedroom door creaked open just a fraction further.
Adrian stood in the doorway.
He had been watching us.
May you like
His dark eyes were shimmering in the dim light, fixed on his sleeping son. I saw the way his throat worked as he swallowed hard, fighting back emotions he had kept buried for half a decade.
Adrian didn't say a word. He looked from Dominic to me, gave a slow, broken nod of profound gratitude, and quietly pulled the door shut, leaving me alone in the dark with the weight of everything that still needed to be healed.
