Mum looked at me with heavy eyes

‘He used to think very very deeply, a bit like you’

The recognition is a curse. Her words stain my peripheral thoughts for days; Nonna’s pasta sauce down my whitest shirts.
And other things passed down.
She told me he was

‘Cleaning a gun, when it went off by accident.’

I was too young then,
But I know now
I know now
It rings in my ears like shrapnel
My sister says she’s glad that I’m not fooled by the idea that you’re

‘Not supposed to need anyone’

But I don’t know how to need anyone else, without hurting them too.
The knowledge that it gets better plagues me with the knowledge that it also gets worse.

Alfio, where did you find the courage?