Chapter 28 Rafaella
Rafaella
Shock exploded like a bomb, the silence in her brain so deafening that her hands went to her ears, trying to drown it out.
No.
That was all she could think as Cosimo flew over the tiles and down the stone stairs.
No.
That was all she could think as Fon crawled up the wall and peered over it.
No.
That was all she could think as his knees buckled and he fell back with an expression she had never seen on any person in her entire life.
No.
No!
But then the stress fractures broke apart her chrysalis and the silence shattered. She heard Cosimo’s screams, like meteors tearing the sky into ribbons. She saw Fon throwing up.
She staggered over to the stairs and made herself look down.
Cosimo was on the ground, cradling his sister, her legs outstretched, one red shoe fallen from her foot.
She could see Romola’s right arm flung out, her beautifully manicured fingers gently curled.
The stone urn lay beside her, not even fully smashed, the geranium flowers deracinated so that their roots were exposed like fish bones.
Cosimo rocked back and forth as he held her, his face tipped to the sky as he roared at the moon and the stars. He was like an animal, feral, non-verbal.
Somehow – half dragging, half falling – she got herself down there too. Was he sure? Was he really sure?
‘Romy!’ she cried, kneeling in the dirt beside her. ‘… Oh God, Romy, no!’
She sobbed, unable to comprehend the scene they found themselves in. How had their lives pivoted into this moment, when everything had been so good, so happy, so destined?
Cosimo looked back at her with a blank gaze and she knew that he wasn’t the man of five minutes ago. In a single moment, his entire world had been destroyed. Nothing would ever be the same again. He would never be the same.
He caught his breath suddenly as he seemed to recognize her through the shock, looking frightened now, like a little boy who’d woken up into a nightmare. ‘… Rafa! … It was an accident!’ he sobbed as she scrabbled over to him, clutching him as he clutched his sister.
‘Of course it was!’ Tears were streaming down her cheeks as the horror seemed to layer up like a wedding skirt: Romola’s death. Cosimo’s fear.
‘I … I didn’t mean to!’ He juddered, pinning her with a desperate look.
‘Of course you didn’t! No one thinks that!’ But her words were just sounds. He wasn’t hearing her, his eyes wild as he looked around them frantically. He startled as he looked up and she followed his gaze to find Fon, white-faced, staring back at them. A ghost, haunting them.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ Cosimo repeated, not seeming to recognize his old adversary.
‘I know. You didn’t do anything wrong,’ Fon replied.
Rafaella tuned in to his voice – calm. Controlled. Almost commanding – and she felt herself latch onto his presence here. They weren’t alone.
She watched as he disappeared, emerging a few moments later, coming down the steps. He was unsteady on his feet but in the glare of this crisis, he alone was holding it together.
He fell to his knees beside them and Rafaella watched him steel himself to look down at Romola. Her beautiful face was untouched but her hair was matted with blood, a crimson pool spreading in the dirt and seeping into the knees of his trousers. Death was touching him.
For a moment, Rafaella thought he was going to throw up again as his eyes scrunched shut, his body literally flinching from the shock.
‘Fon?’ she whispered.
He took several deep breaths and steadied himself. He looked down, as she had, and the vain hope he had cradled at a distance dissipated. Rafaella watched a tear slide silently down his cheek as the hopelessness of the situation became fully apparent.
Without a word, he reached his hand forward and shakily closed Romola’s eyes.
Cosimo cried out again, completely broken, and Rafaella threw her arm around him as if trying to physically hold him together. She looked back at Fon desperately.
‘What do we do?’ she asked him, her voice thin with terror.
Romola was dead – but it wasn’t going to end there. The police would come and there’d be an investigation. Someone would have to pay for this. An eye for an eye.
‘Fon, help us!’ she cried, feeling herself begin to shake as she faced the prospect of losing Cosimo too. ‘You have to help us! What do we do?’
Fon looked back at her, seeing how she needed him – she had never needed him more – but he couldn’t seem to find his voice.
‘Help us!’ she screamed. ‘Cosimo can’t be arrested, Fon! It was an accident. If it was anyone’s fault, it was yours! You came here and you … you pushed him to it! You pushed him too far!’
Fon recoiled at her words, his feet scrabbling in the dirt, and she reached for him with her free arm, clutching his hand so hard it blanched white.
‘No! No! I didn’t mean that!’ she gasped, her voice ragged and her own eyes wild.
‘I didn’t mean that. I didn’t. I’m sorry!
I’m upset. I’m panicking …’ He blinked back at her as her fingernails dug into his skin.
She wouldn’t let him leave them here. He couldn’t leave them here.
‘I need you to help him, Fon. You’re the only one who can.
Please, just help him! I’ll do anything! Anything!’
She saw his expression change then, and she caught her breath – her life had constricted down to this tiny moment of existence where surviving it was the only thing that mattered. She stared at him, feeling as if she could see into his very soul.
‘What is it you want from me, Fon?’ she asked him, her voice lower now. Slower. She spoke intentionally, understanding she had some kind of leverage. ‘Because I’ll do it. Anything at all. Just tell me what you want.’
He looked into her eyes and she saw that he was every bit as broken as Cosimo. ‘I only ever wanted you to be mine,’ he whispered, his words slurring again.
‘Then save Cosi,’ she pleaded with him. ‘And I will be.’