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Far away,
this ship is taking me far away.
Far away from the memories
of the people who care if I live or die
Bruno opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was the sky. It was such a vibrant, clear blue that for a moment he allowed himself to simply admire it and think of nothing else.
He didn’t know where he was or how he had gotten there, or even if he was really awake or if this was a dream from which he hadn’t yet been able to wake up.
The wood creaked beneath his back as he tried to sit up. He felt the rocking, that slow, steady sway of a body on the water, and as he turned his head he saw the edges of a small wooden boat, and beyond, in the distance, a faint line of land silhouetted against the horizon.
He was alone in the middle of the sea. He didn’t remember getting into a boat or even being near the sea, yet there he was with clean, unwrinkled clothes clinging to a body that didn’t hurt.
That, he thought as he sat up fully and rested his hands on the edges of the boat, was the strangest thing of all: the absence of pain, those sharp jabs that had been accompanying him for days and that he’d forced himself to endure in silence. Although in the last few days, the pain had been replaced by numbness.
He grabbed the oars on pure instinct and began rowing toward the shore while his mind spun round and round, trying to piece together the fragments of a memory that was slipping away.
The last thing he remembered was Rome— yes, they were in Rome and had arrived at the Colosseum— and then something had happened, something important that made his blood run cold every time he tried unsuccessfully to get closer to it. It was as if his own mind had built a wall to protect him from what he wasn’t yet ready to face.
He rowed harder, feeling the muscles in his arms respond without the slightest complaint. The coast was slowly coming into view, its buildings growing increasingly distinct against the sky. Just as he could almost make out the colors of the facades and the silhouettes of people moving along the pier, the memory exploded in his head.
Sardinia, the beach and Leone lying cold on a rock, blood spilling all over his body and the ground. Bruno had been too far away to do anything but watch the lifeless body that had gone still before anyone could say a word, before they could even say goodbye.
And then came Rome, the Colosseum, and Narancia dying with no one able to stop it, the boy’s body pierced through with his eyes closed and that look of peace making him seem asleep, as if his brain hadn’t had time to process the blow before everything went dark.
Then came the arrow, Giorno’s hand catching it, and that golden light that enveloped everything. Then nothing, absolutely nothing. A void deeper than any dream from which he had just awakened at the bottom of a boat in the middle of the sea.
His heart was pounding so hard and his arms moved almost on their own, rowing at a frantic pace that sent water splashing onto his legs and the wood of the boat. He needed to get to shore fast; he needed to find a phone or whatever it took to find out what had happened to Giorno, Mista, and Trish.
To know if his sacrifice had been for anything or if it had all been in vain, if the boss was still alive and his boys were dead and he was there, alone, inexplicably alive in a body that didn’t have a single wound and seemed not to have aged a day.
He tried to summon Sticky Fingers to propel himself forward faster, clenching his fists and focusing on that inner spark that had always answered his call, but there was nothing. He felt a strange emptiness but he didn’t let himself get distracted. He kept rowing without really knowing where or why, but with the certainty that he had to reach land and that once there, everything would start to make sense.
The people walking along the pier didn’t look at him when he docked. That struck him as odd because a boat arriving alone with a pale, distraught man inside should have attracted at least a little attention, but the people went on their way without the slightest hint of curiosity.
He jumped ashore, his legs trembling, and forced himself to stop for a moment to take a deep breath, just as his father had taught him when he was a child. A long breath in through his nose, then an exhale, and then again and again until his heartbeat stopped pounding in his ears and he could think a little more clearly.
He was undoubtedly in Naples, the city of his childhood and his entire life, but there was something about the light that didn’t quite add up, everything seemed too perfect to be real.
That feeling stayed with him as he walked through the streets toward the base, reminding himself over and over that he needed a phone or a radio, anything that would let him communicate with the others, find out what had happened, and understand why he was alone in the middle of all this, his heart full of questions.
But when he turned the corner and looked up at the street where they used to meet, the sight completely paralyzed him. His stomach clenched like never before, and a pain in his chest made him plant his feet firmly on the sidewalk.
Across the street, sitting at an outdoor table at a small café with an awning, were two figures he would recognize among ten thousand even if he could only see them from behind or from the other side of the world, because they had been his and he had been theirs.
The taller figure was the one with his back to him. Bruno knew it was Abbacchio even without seeing his face, because that way of sitting with his back hunched forward and that hair, strangely light and long for a Neapolitan, were unmistakable.
The smaller figure was the one sitting in front, gesturing with his hands and his whole body with that unbridled energy that only Narancia had ever possessed.
Bruno stood on the other side of the street, his breath caught in his throat. It was them, it was Leone and Narancia, and they were alive—or at least they seemed to be—which was impossible because he had seen them die, he had seen Leone’s guts scattered across the rock and Narancia’s clouded eyes on the frozen ground.
Yet there they were, drinking coffee and talking as if nothing had happened.
Narancia was the first to see him. He looked up mid-sentence and his eyes met Bruno’s across the street. His face flashed through every possible emotion in the space of a second. First confusion, then recognition, then a pain so intense it etched itself across his features.
He opened his mouth and let out a sob. “No!” he managed to say before jumping up so quickly that his chair tipped backward, shaking the table and causing Abbacchio’s cup to spill onto the plate.
He ran toward Bruno with open arms and his face streaked with tears, repeating 'no' over and over until he crossed the street.
Bruno opened his arms and Narancia threw himself into him with all his might, the impact sent them stumbling a few steps backward, and Bruno planted his feet firmly on the ground to keep from falling.
Narancia’s skinny arms squeezed his neck almost painfully, the boy buried his face in his shoulder and hot tears soaked Bruno's suit and his neck.
"Bruno, Bruno, Bruno" Narancia repeated over and over. Bruno could only hold him close to his chest and bury one hand in his tousled hair while the other ran up and down his back, a gesture he’d made so many times before when the world became too cruel for someone who’d barely outgrown childhood.
With Narancia crying on his neck and tears welling up in his own eyes, he looked up and saw Abbacchio walking toward them.
He moved slowly, as if each step required an infinite amount of effort. His face was pale, his eyes red and shiny, and his lips pressed into a straight line.
When he reached them, he stopped a couple of steps away. Narancia stepped back slightly though without letting go of his sleeve entirely but making room for Abbacchio to approach.
"You shouldn't be here" Leone said. His hands were clenched at his sides, Bruno saw them trembling in slight spasms as if they didn't quite know what to do, whether to move to touch him or stay still. “What happened to you? What did they do to you?” Leone didn’t want Bruno to be there.
The truth was, he hadn’t been waiting for him with open arms and a welcoming smile, but with a heavy heart and a silent prayer that he wouldn’t arrive until many, many years later, that he would remain in the world of the living and go on with his life, even if it meant without them.
Now Bruno was standing right in front of him, and that meant his prayer hadn’t been answered. His worst fear had come true, and Bruno was dead too.
Narancia, who was still crying into his shoulder with sobs he couldn’t control, clenched his fingers into the fabric of his suit and murmured in a muffled voice against the cloth “We thought you’d made it” and then “We thought you were going to live.”
It hurt Bruno, of course it hurt him, a small part of him had also hoped his body would hold out a little longer, until it was all over and he could lie down to rest knowing that Giorno, Mista, and Trish were safe.
“Giorno won, I'm sure” Bruno said because it was the only thing he could offer them in exchange for their pain. “The arrow chose him. But I… My body couldn’t take it anymore. It had held out too long, and when it was all over… there was nothing left to do.” Abbacchio pressed his lips together tighter, Bruno saw his eyes fill with tears he didn’t want to let fall, a deep furrow etched between his brows for a moment, and his throat swallowed hard.
Then he took the final step he needed and closed the distance between them, his arms wrapping around Bruno and Narancia at the same time, pressing them against his chest with a force that seemed to want to fuse them with his own body.
"You're a fucking idiot" Abbacchio whispered into his hair, tears finally streaming down his face, unable to hold them back. "A stubborn, obstinate, stupid, stupid idiot. We thought that maybe… maybe you’d managed to get out, that you were going to live the life you deserved.” Narancia nodded against Bruno’s shoulder.
Bruno closed his eyes, letting himself be enveloped by the familiar warmth of their bodies. “I’m sorry” he said after a while, wiping his eyes with his suit sleeve. “For leaving you guys alone.” But Abbacchio shook his head, rubbing his nose against Bruno’s temple, and Narancia let out a sob before speaking. “You came, that’s all that matters.”
And Bruno, who had spent so long being everyone’s pillar, the one who protected, supported and never faltered, let the tears fall freely as he hugged his boys in the middle of that street that smelled of the sea and all the things he had loved in life.
He couldn't remember how long they'd been hugging, he didn't care, all he wanted was to stay there forever with his cheek resting on Abbacchio's shoulder and Narancia's fingers still clinging to his arm.
Finally it was Abbacchio who took a step back, though he kept one hand on his arm, and Narancia did the same but intertwined his fingers with Bruno’s, staying close to his side.
They ended up sitting on the same café terrace where Bruno had first seen them, with the chairs rearranged and a new cup for Abbacchio and another for Bruno.
Narancia had sat down to his left and wouldn’t let go of his hand, and Abbacchio was across from him, his arms crossed on the table and his gaze fixed on Bruno.
Bruno took the cup in his hands and felt the warmth of the coffee seeping through the ceramic. That ordinary sensation moved him deeply, for it confirmed that everything was real. That his hands could feel the warmth and his mouth could drink. It wasn’t a trick of his dying mind but something that was truly happening.
"Tell me" Bruno said after a sip of coffee. "What you’ve done, who you’ve seen."
It turned out that Abbacchio had arrived first. Narancia had shown up later, walking down the same street without really knowing how he’d gotten there or where he’d come from. “It was really weird” Narancia said gesturing with the hand that wasn’t busy holding onto Bruno. “One moment I was over there with you, and the next… poof, here.”
Abbacchio nodded and explained that he had arrived on a bus. When Bruno raised his eyebrows curiously, he shrugged as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “An old bus, it was empty, I didn’t see if there was a driver.” He paused for a moment, taking a sip of his coffee. “I got off at the corner, on this street. And the first thing I saw was my partner, still working, as if not a single day had passed since the last time I saw him.” His voice grew quieter on the last few words but recovered quickly, though Bruno knew that wound was still open even if Leone pretended it had already healed.
"Me too" Narancia interrupted with that impatience of his, he just couldn't stand to keep quiet when there was something to say. "I just came around that corner, the one over there, and I was already here. And the first thing I saw was Abbacchio, sitting right here and crying. I swear, Buccia– Bruno, I’d never seen him cry like that in my whole life, and I didn’t understand anything, I just knew he was there and I was there and that something had happened, something really big, and then he hugged me and told me that… that you weren’t coming, that maybe you’d stayed behind and survived.”
Narancia’s eyes welled up again and he wiped them with the back of his hand, sniffling as he did so. “And I told him no, that you always found a way to get here, and then we sat down to wait, and we waited and waited.”
Bruno felt a lump in his throat as he listened. He forced himself to take another sip of coffee and swallow hard, the hot liquid sliding down his throat and anchoring him to that reality that still felt so elusive to him. “I arrived in a boat” he said, noticing how Narancia and Abbacchio were looking at him with a bit of bewilderment as if that were the strangest thing they’d heard all day. "A small wooden boat. I was lying there looking up at the sky, and when I woke up, I didn’t know where I was or how I’d gotten there. I rowed to shore and then walked all the way here, and then I saw you guys and… well, here I am."
Narancia let out a shaky laugh. “A boat” he repeated, as if he couldn’t believe his own ears. Abbacchio, who had been silent the whole time, shook his head and let out a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his lungs.
"Of course it would be a boat. You had to come by sea, you had to row to the shore, still fighting. Even after death you can't stop fighting." His fingers traced a circle along the rim of his cup, Bruno watched him do it intently, touched by that small gesture so characteristic of him.
Then, Bruno remembered what had been gnawing at his head since he'd set foot in this place. "I tried to use Sticky Fingers when I was rowing toward the shore, I thought I could speed up the trip, but nothing happened. I called him and nothing happened, as if it had never been with me." He looked down at his hands and saw them empty, useless. "I tried again on land, and again, but nothing happened"
Narancia and Abbacchio glanced at each other, and it was the younger who spoke first. "Of course, Bruno. There are no stands here. We don't need them" He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, with that absolute certainty of someone who had already accepted the truth.
Abbacchio nodded. "There's no reason to fight here, no enemies lurking around the next corner" His fingers brushed against Bruno's, his voice growing softer. "Stands are tools of war and there's no war here. You don't have to protect anyone anymore, you've fought enough for a lifetime. Now you just have to be here. With us."
Bruno felt relief, like a knot coming undone after years of being tight. "There's no war here" he repeated testing the words. "I don't know if I know how to do that" And it was true because his whole life had been a constant struggle, one battle after another without respite, and the idea of simply stopping felt as strange as breathing underwater.
"Then you'll learn" Narancia said with that blind faith he'd always placed in Bruno. "We're here for that too, aren't we? To learn to be at peace without feeling guilty about it" He rested his head on Bruno's shoulder again. "I still don't know how to be completely at peace. Sometimes I think I hear footsteps, and I have to remind myself that nothing happens here, no one's going to come and hurt us. But it passes, little by little. And it'll pass for you too"
Abbacchio's hand covered Bruno's completely for a moment before retraining it and Bruno felt the warmth of that hand on his and the weight of Narancia's body against his side. Maybe putting his guard down was another way of winning.
"It’s so unfair" the long-haired man whispered after some seconds of silence, staring at the sip of black coffee at the bottom of his cup. "It’s so unfair that you’re here. You weren’t supposed to be here Bruno, you were supposed to stay there, become capo— no, not just capo, become the boss— and we… Narancia and I were supposed to have stayed behind, just a memory to look back on from time to time with nostalgia and nothing more"
Bruno, who knew Leone better than anyone, knew those words weren't meant as a reproach, so he kept looking him in the eye, waiting for him to finish saying what he needed to say.
"And the worst part" Abbacchio continued, his voice growing quieter and quieter "Is that I'm selfish. Because when I saw you, the first emotion I felt wasn't entirely sadness. It was something like joy, so overwhelming and I hated feeling that, knowing that I was looking at you and that the only thing I could think was ‘he’s finally here’ when I had passed the hours convincing myself that I really wished you’d never come” He ran a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes hard.
When he looked at Bruno again his eyes were glistening with tears once more, and his voice trembled. “It was eating me alive to think about it. That you’d be left there without us, that you’d rebuild your life with someone else, that that person would take the place I’d once held, and I… I’d become a memory, a ghost. I didn’t want to be that. I didn’t want to be a dead person you remembered every now and then on rainy days. I wanted… I wanted you to…”
He couldn't finish the sentence but Bruno understood anyway, as he always did, because Leone had always had trouble expressing his feelings and most of the time couldn't bring himself to finish. He took Abbacchio's hand in his own, raised it to his lips, and kissed his knuckles. Leone's skin was warm, so alive and real.
"I always thought of you two" Bruno said without taking his lips off those knuckles he had so often seen clenched around a coffee cup or a man’s neck. "Of you, Leone. I thought more than would have been prudent for a man who was about to die and who should have been focused on more… urgent matters."
Abbacchio stared at Bruno with wide eyes, his breath suspended somewhere between his chest and his throat. “I don’t regret being here. And I don’t want you to regret being glad to see me, because I’m glad to see you too, and if that makes the three of us selfish, then so be it. We’ll be selfish together, just as we always have been.”
Beside him Narancia laughed, wiping away the tears that were still falling though now with less intensity, less like a storm and more like a downpour. “You two are so sickening”
Bruno smiled and Abbacchio rolled his eyes. The tense moment broke just enough for them to breathe again and continue speaking without their words getting stuck halfway out.
Or so they thought, because Abbacchio’s expression changed, his breathing taking on that rhythm of an angry bull he always had when rage surged through him with intensity. “Giorno” he spat the name out like an insult, with all the venom he’d been building up during hours and hours of waiting in this timeless place.
"This is all his fault. He and his damn way of dragging everyone into his madness without caring who fell by the wayside" Bruno tried to interrupt him but Abbacchio gave him that 'let me speak' look, and he shut his mouth because he knew that gesture, it was better to keep quiet and let him get everything off his chest. "If he hadn’t shown up, with his fucking stupid childish morality, none of us would be here. You’d still be alive, Bruno. Protecting them, Fugo, Mista. You’d still have a future. And he… he’s taken all that away, taken all three of us. And now he’s out there, alive and well, occupying the position it took you years to build, enjoying something that should never have been his”
Bruno understood Abbacchio’s anger, he even shared it in some ways, but he also knew that this anger was misdirected or at least incomplete and that if he didn’t say something soon, Leone would be poisoned by it forever, consumed by a grudge that made no sense to harbor in that place.
"Leone, listen to me" He waited for his furious eyes to meet his own and for him to calm down so they could talk without getting lost in the pain. "Giorno didn’t force us to follow him" he said choosing his words carefully so as not to upset him further. "He asked us to do it, yes, but the decision was ours. The decision was mine, and it was yours, and it was Narancia’s, and it was every one of those who said ‘yes’ knowing what it entailed”
Abbacchio opened his mouth to reply but Bruno wouldn’t let him, instead he kept talking with that characteristic firmness of his that brooked no interruptions. “I decided to follow him because he gave me something I’d lost a long time ago. He gave me a purpose, something that wasn’t just about protecting what I already had. He gave us the chance to fight for something greater than ourselves, greater than Passione and Naples, even greater than anything we’d ever had before”
He paused for a moment, searching for the right words that might reach Abbacchio’s hardened heart and soften it. "And if, to achieve that, so that Giorno could change things and make Naples a better place, it required me to die... Then I’m glad I did." He smiled slightly, taking one of Abbacchio’s hands and the other of Narancia’s, and caressing them with his thumbs. "I’m glad that Giorno is alive and can finish what we started. We haven’t died in vain. And I’m a thousand times happier that it turned out this way rather than just being some corpses on the long list of the dead that this city swallows without batting an eye.”
Narancia, who had been listening in silence with his eyes growing brighter and brighter, rested his head on Bruno’s shoulder and muttered something that sounded like “that’s true”. Bruno stroked his hair without taking his eyes off Abbacchio. “Don’t blame Giorno for being here, Leone. We did it because we wanted to, because it was the right thing to do. If we hadn’t done it, who would have? Who was going to stand up to the boss if not us? Who was going to protect Trish if not us? Who else but us would take the first step toward a better world, since we were the only ones stupid or brave enough to try to bring change?"
Abbacchio was silent for a long time after that, staring at the cup of coffee that had already gone cold in his hands. Bruno said nothing more, he stood there with Narancia leaning on his shoulder and Leone’s hand still warm beneath his, waiting for the words to sink in.
Abbacchio sighed heavily before turning his hand and interlacing his fingers with Bruno’s. “You’re not going to convince me, because I know this isn’t… what it should have been. The three of us should be alive and together, doing what we never dared to do because there was always something more important. A mission, a fight, there was always some bullshit.” He ran his free hand over his face, rubbing his eyes with the back of his wrist.
Bruno saw him looking so vulnerable and beautifully human that he felt his heart was about to burst out of his chest, even though he knew that dead hearts shouldn’t beat that hard.
"But now there is no tomorrow" Abbacchio continued in the quietest voice, as if he had become once again the boy who had once joined Bruno’s group with a look of distrust in his eyes. "There is only the here and now. And I want… I want to make the most of it. I want to do all those things we didn’t do. I want us to be together, to live… Or whatever this is, in peace… Without Passione's shit, without the fucking drugs or death breathing down our necks.” He paused, unable to continue, and Bruno nodded with a small smile.
"Let's do all those things, Leone. All the things we didn’t do in life, all the things we can think of now and tomorrow and the day after and always since we have all the time in the world that we never had down there.” Abbacchio, who had been holding all that pain inside for so long, finally let out the breath he’d been holding and rested his forehead on the hand with which Bruno was still squeezing his fingers.
Bruno felt a strange peace he had never allowed himself to savor. On the best days, even when everything was going well and they were safe, there had always been a reminder that nothing lasted forever. But here with those two, who were the most precious people he had ever known in his life, the thorn had disappeared and he felt lighter than he could ever remember feeling.
It was Narancia who broke the silence as expected, the boy had never been able to stay quiet for more than five minutes straight without something boiling inside him. “Hey” he said sitting up a little and looking at Bruno with eyes still bright but now showing a spark of his old energy. “Hey, Bruno, you know who I saw a little while ago? I saw Signora Marta, the one from the bakery, the one who always gave us extra bread when we went to buy some and told Fugo and me that we were too skinny and that kids our age needed to eat well.” He gestured with his hands as he spoke, letting go of Bruno so he could move freely.
Bruno smiled when he saw him so full of life, unable to sit still in his seat. “Do you remember her? She died a few years ago, I think before Mista arrived, I don’t remember exactly. But I saw her, she was in the same bakery giving a bread to a boy who had fallen off his bike and was crying on the sidewalk. And when she saw me, she waved at me as if nothing were wrong, and I didn’t know what to do. I just waved back and kept walking, but then I stood there for a while watching her from a distance.”
Abbacchio nodded with a smile as well, and they chatted for a while about people they hoped to run into. About Abbacchio’s partner who was still wearing his neatly pressed uniform and cap, about how Narancia had seen some dogs and was fascinated that animals could come to heaven too, and more and more silly things like that.
Suddenly, even though none of the stories he’d just heard pointed directly to it, the idea hit Bruno with the force of a train, and he felt his heart stop in his chest and his blood run cold in his veins.
My father, he thought. My father is here, he’s in this place. My father died when I was sixteen, and I haven’t seen him since— not since that day when we buried him in his best suit and I was left alone in the world, and now he’s here, somewhere in this Naples that isn’t Naples, somewhere, and I can go see him, I can walk to my childhood's house and knock on the door, and he’ll open it, see me and know who I am and hug me and–
The thought was so overwhelming that Bruno felt his legs tremble and the air escape from his lungs. Before he knew it, while Abbacchio and Narancia continued talking, he had already stood up and was walking with his gaze fixed on some point beyond the horizon, somewhere where he knew his father was waiting for him without knowing he was waiting, living out his peaceful death without imagining that his son had finally caught up with him just a few years later.
"Bruno" Abbacchio said worriedly but Bruno didn't hear him, because his mind was filled with the image of his father sitting in his favorite chair with the newspaper in his hands, just as he always did. "Bruno, stop" Abbacchio said more firmly and Bruno felt a hand grab his wrist and pull him to a sudden halt before he could cross the street and disappear among the buildings. "Look at me. Breathe. You can’t go like this. You can’t run off without even knowing where you’re going, without being prepared for what you’re going to find."
“My father” Bruno said, his voice coming out shaky and rapid. “My father is here, Leone. I can see him. I can go find him right now, walk to the house and knock on the door and have him... have him see me and hug him and..."
He couldn’t finish the sentence because his throat closed up and his eyes filled with tears. "I have to go" he tugged at his wrist to free himself from Abbacchio’s grip but Leone tightened his grip and forced him to stay where he was, to calm down before doing anything he might regret later.
"And if he's not in the house, so what?" Abbacchio asked calmly to keep him from running off and crashing into a reality that might not be as simple as it seemed. "What if the house isn't there, or if it is but it's not the same, or if your father isn't there because things don't work the same way here as they do on Earth, and people show up where they're supposed to, not where we want them to? What are you going to do then? Are you going to stand in the middle of the street crying because things didn’t turn out the way you imagined?” His voice softened on the last words.
Bruno felt his fingers shift from gripping his wrist to stroking the palm of his hand. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t go, Bruno. I’m saying we should go together, the three of us, calmly, the way things should be done. You have to prepare yourself for whatever we encounter, whatever it may be.”
Narancia had gotten up too and was standing on his other side, gently holding his shoulder. “Your house, the one with the blue door. I went there once, do you remember? When we first met you took me to see it, showed me the outside, and told me you’d grown up there. So, as Abbacchio says, when we get there we’ll see what happens.”
Bruno looked both of them in the eyes, first at Narancia who was smiling at him affectionately and a little nervously, then at Leone who was looking at him patiently, smiling too. He took a deep breath, once, twice, just as his father had taught him when he was a child.
"Okay" he said more firmly than he’d expected, that breathing exercise had worked better than he remembered. "Are you coming with me?" he asked though he already knew the answer, he’d seen it written on their faces even before he’d asked the question.
Abbacchio stood to his left and intertwined his fingers with Bruno’s with the same ease they’d done it thousands of times when they were alive. Narancia stood to his right and slipped his bony hand into Bruno’s, interlocking his fingers with him.
With their hands clasped and their eyes fixed on the horizon, the three of them crossed the street and turned the corner, entering the narrow streets of that Naples that didn’t quite feel real.
"Maybe he's not there" Bruno said quietly to himself as they walked down a street he had walked down hundreds of times as a child, one that now seemed both unfamiliar and familiar to him at the same time. "Maybe we'll get there and the house will be empty, or it won't be there, or it will be there but it won't be the same, or it will be there but my father has moved somewhere else, or he's there but he doesn’t recognize me, or...” Abbacchio clenched his fingers around Bruno’s with a force that almost hurt just enough to cut off that torrent of possibilities.
"Or maybe he is. Maybe he's waiting for his son to come home for dinner, just like he used to when you were a kid." Bruno felt his eyes welling up again, he didn't try to hide it because there was no need to hide anything. He could cry if he wanted to, laugh if he wanted to, be sad and be happy, all at the same time without anyone judging him for it. "And if he isn’t, well, we’ll look for him. We’ll search every street in this city until we find him because now we have all the time we didn’t have before, and I won’t stop until you get what you deserve."
Narancia nodded vigorously. Bruno felt his fingers tighten as well as he hung onto his arm with all his weight, just as he did when he was happy and didn’t know how else to show it. “And in the meantime, well, let’s go for a walk” Narancia said with a lightheartedness that was almost deceiving. “It’s a nice day, the city looks beautiful, and the two of you are holding hands like a married couple which is still a little weird to me but also cute, I won’t lie.”
Bruno let out a small laugh that came from deep in his stomach, unable to stop it, and Abbacchio rolled his eyes again, trying to look annoyed but actually feeling the exact opposite.
Bruno squeezed his boys’ hands with all his might. Then he took the first step toward the rest of his life or whatever came next, knowing that whatever it was, he would face it alongside them, as it had always been and as it always should be.