The Stolen Song My Husband Sang with My Sister

1. Senna

— ? —

Senna

The light in Florence has a way of making everything look like a promise somebody forgot to keep.

I’m standing at the kitchen window with my second espresso going cold in my hands, watching the morning turn the terracotta rooftops into something out of a painting.

Rocco used to say this city was built for people who believe in second chances.

He told me that the night he proposed, right after he’d botched the first attempt so badly that he dropped the ring into that shallow fountain near the Arno and had to wade in after it while I laughed until I cried.

“Florence forgives,” he’d said, water dripping from his sleeves, the ring finally safe in his palm. “That’s why we belong here.”

That was seven years ago. I’m not sure what Florence does anymore, but forgiving doesn’t seem to be it.

From the other room, I hear the piano - just a few notes, hesitant, then nothing.

Then a few more. It’s been like this for eighteen months now: Rocco sitting down at the keys like he’s approaching something that might bite him, playing fragments that never become songs, then walking away with his jaw tight and his eyes somewhere I can’t reach.

I set down the espresso and move to the doorway without really deciding to.

He’s hunched over the piano in yesterday’s shirt, hair uncombed, and there’s a notebook open on the music stand that I recognize as the one he’s been carrying around for eighteen months without filling.

His fingers find a chord, then another. A melody starts to form - something gentle and aching, the kind of thing that used to pour out of him like breathing.

“The B-flat,” I say quietly. “Try the B-flat in the second measure instead of the B.”

His hands still on the keys. For a moment, he doesn’t turn around.

Then he plays the B-flat, and the melody opens up like a window, and he turns to look at me with something in his eyes I haven’t seen in months.

“How do you always know?” he asks, and there’s wonder in his voice, the old wonder, the thing that used to make me feel like I mattered.

“I don’t know. I just hear it.” I lean against the doorframe, arms crossed, trying to look casual. “It wanted to go there. You were fighting it.”

“I was fighting it,” he repeats slowly. “Yeah. I’ve been fighting everything lately. Come here, will you? I want to try something.”

I cross the room and stand beside the piano bench, close enough to see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands hover over the keys like he’s afraid they’ll betray him.

“Play it again,” I say. “The whole phrase.”

He does, and I hum along without thinking, finding the harmony line instinctively. For thirty seconds we’re us again - the couple who fell in love in a practice room, who used to stay up until 3 a.m. chasing melodies.

“There,” I say when he hits the progression I’ve been hearing in my head. “Right there. Do you feel that?”

“I feel it.” He looks up at me, and something flickers across his face. “Senna, why don’t we do this anymore?”

“Do what?”

“This. You and me, working on something together. You standing there telling me I’m playing the wrong note, me actually listening for once.”

“You stopped asking,” I say, and the words come out sharper than I intended. “And then you stopped playing anything worth commenting on. No offense.”

“None taken. You’re right.” He runs his hand through his hair. “The label got in my head. They told me the marriage stuff was stale, and I just - I froze. I didn’t know what else to write about.”

“You could have talked to me about it.”

“I know. I should have. I just-” He breaks off, closes the notebook. “I didn’t want you to see me like this. Broken. Empty.”

“Rocco, I’ve seen you with food poisoning in Palermo. I’ve seen you cry at a commercial about retirement planning. I think I can handle creative struggle.”

He laughs, surprised, and for a second he looks like himself again. “That commercial was emotional, and you know it.”

“It was about compound interest.”

“It was about legacy, Senna. Legacy and the passage of time.”

“It was about a bank.”

We’re both smiling now, and God, I’ve missed this. The easy back-and-forth, the way we used to make each other laugh without trying.

“Play it again,” I say. “The whole thing, from the top.”

“Will you sing?”

“I don’t sing anymore.”

“You used to sing all the time. You used to sing in the shower, in the kitchen, in your sleep-”

“I do not sing in my sleep.”

“You absolutely do. Little humming noises, sometimes full words. It’s terrifying and also adorable.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not. Last week you sang half of ‘La Vie en Rose’ at three in the morning. I didn’t have the heart to wake you.”

I don’t know what to do with this information, so I ignore it. “Play the phrase again.”

He plays, and I hum along, and for a few minutes the silence in our house is replaced by something that feels almost like hope. But then the phrase ends, and the silence comes back, and I watch his face close up again, the walls going back up.

“Thanks,” he says, standing from the bench. “I should probably eat something. Is there coffee?”

“There’s espresso. It’s cold by now.”

“Cold is fine.”

He moves past me toward the kitchen, and I follow, because I’m not ready to let this moment go, not ready to watch him disappear back into the fog he’s been living in for eighteen months.

“Rocco, wait.”

He stops in the kitchen doorway. “Yeah?”

“I meant what I said. About working on something together. If you wanted. I know I’m not in the industry anymore, but I still hear music. I still know when a song is working and when it’s not.”

“I know you do.” He’s not looking at me. “You always did.”

“So let me help. Let me in.”

The silence stretches between us, filled with all the things we’re not saying. I watch him pour cold espresso into a cup and drink it like it’s medicine, and I wonder when we became the kind of people who can’t even have a conversation without someone walking away.

“I need to tell you something,” he says finally.

My heart does that thing it does now - not quite sinking, but bracing. “Okay.”

“The label called today. They’re bringing in someone to help me with the block. A collaborator.”

“A collaborator.” I keep my voice neutral. “That’s - I mean, that could be good, right? Someone new to work with, fresh perspective?”

“Yeah. They think it’ll help. Get me writing again.”

“Do you think it’ll help?”

He finally looks at me, and I see something vulnerable in his face, something that looks almost like fear. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore, Senna. I just know I can’t keep going like this. I’m losing my mind. I’m losing myself.”

“You’re not losing yourself. You’re just stuck. Everyone gets stuck.”

“Not like this. Not for eighteen months. Not when everyone’s watching, waiting for me to fail.”

“No one’s waiting for you to fail.”

“The critics are. The label is. Sometimes I think-” He stops himself, shakes his head. “Never mind.”

“Sometimes you think what?”

“Sometimes I think you are too.”

The words land like a slap, and I actually take a step back. “That’s not fair.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

“Then why did you say it?”

“Because I’m tired, Senna. I’m tired and I’m scared and I don’t know how to fix any of this, and every time I look at you, I see everything I’m letting down.”

“You’re not letting me down by struggling. You’re letting me down by shutting me out.”

“I know.” His voice is barely above a whisper. “I know.”

We stand there in the kitchen, the space between us feeling like miles, and I want to cross it so badly.

I want to put my arms around him and tell him it’s going to be okay, that we’re going to figure this out together.

But I’ve crossed that distance so many times, and every time, he’s found a way to retreat further.

“Who is it?” I ask instead. “The collaborator.”

Rocco hesitates. Something in the quality of his silence makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

“Rocco. Who did the label hire?”

He sets down the espresso cup. “It’s Fiorella.”