Just Enough to Keep Going

Life settled into a hard, narrow rhythm. Each day felt carved from the same cold stone, predictable in its demands, yet still somehow heavy on my shoulders. I wasn't sure when the days stopped feeling like mine and became something I owed the world.

Mornings started early. Not because I liked them, I didn't, but because I had to be up before the cold settled too deep into the walls. I dressed in silence, slipping into my patched trousers and the jumper with the elbow worn thin. The floorboards groaned beneath me as if protesting that someone so small was carrying so much weight.

The kitchen was always cold. The kind of cold that made your teeth ache if you breathed too deeply. I'd coax the stove back to life with coal I'd rationed from the night before, blowing gently on the embers like I was whispering secrets to them. I always hoped they'd listen.

Breakfast was quite a work-thin porridge if we had oats, toast from bread. When I was lucky, there'd be a smudge of jam, carefully scraped from the jar's corners. Mum would only eat if I did first. She'd watch me like I was the sun climbing over her horizon, like maybe if I kept rising, she could too.

Widows aren't rare these days, the war keeps cutting men from the city like weeds, but that doesn't mean it's any kinder to them. There's no special ration card for grief. No warm loaf set aside for a house left hollow. Mum's tried to hide how thin the envelopes are now. Tried to hide how each trip to the market leaves her palms trembling from the maths of it all.

Chores followed. Always chores. I swept the ash, boiled water, checked on the blackout curtains, and folded laundry before it ever wrinkled. I was learning to stay ahead of things, as if control over the little tasks could stop everything else from falling apart. I had started polishing the doorknobs, not because they needed it, but because I didn't know what else to do with my hands.

Outside, I made my rounds. I fetched water for old Mr. Douglas, helped Mrs. Kemp hang frozen sheets stiff as cardboard, and carried coal for Miss Vale, who still called me "sweetheart" even though my smiles had grown scarce. They gave me payment in whatever they could spare, soft apples, half-burned candles, buttons, or shillings wrapped in napkins.

The war made everyone a little strange. Adults cried when no one was watching. Kids shouted too loudly in the streets, like they were trying to scare away silence.

School was the most challenging part of the day, not because of the work, but because of the noise. The children called me names now. "Tin Boy." 

Some days, I almost admire how they giggle. How light they are. Then I feel something fold up inside me, neat and final. I decide it's simpler not to care. Easier to file down my edges so nothing sticks to me, not worry, not hurt, not even hope. At first, it was by accident. Now it's on purpose.

Sometimes they pushed. I didn't push back. I just stood there, eyes open, watching. That unsettled them more than a fight would've. They didn't understand that I didn't have the room inside me for anger. Or fear. Or play. They were just plain annoying.

The teachers tried their best. They spoke gently when I turned in work, gave me soft smiles that stretched too far. One of them once slipped a boiled sweet into my desk drawer. I stared at it before giving it to Mum. She needed these little things more than I did.

Afternoons were spent with her when I could. I read aloud when she was awake, old poems and stories she already knew but never interrupted. Sometimes she'd close her eyes and hum while I read. I couldn't tell if she was listening or just drifting with the sound of my voice.

By evening, I practised sleight-of-hand, not for tricks, but for usefulness. Going off of vague memories of magic videos I saw in my past life. I had almost mastered the coin vanish, the palm pass. Not for performance. For survival. If it came to it, I'd be ready.

I hadn't stolen yet, not really. A few things, maybe, small ones. A candle stub from the supply shed. A loose potato no one seemed to want.

I've been using my System a lot more since I became the only responsible one in the house. It has come in handy for stealing minor things when no one is looking. Also, I've been using the System Inventory to store objects. Primarily for food, the system stops time within the Inventory, so I've been using it to prevent things from going bad.

At night, I'd tuck Mum in gently, smoothing the quilt the way she used to for me. I'd brush back her hair, sometimes braid it if she was too tired. She didn't speak much in the evenings, but she always squeezed my hand, like I was her anchor.

After I walk into the living room, I sit in Grandad's chair. I'd lower my, formerly his, flat cap over my eyes.

Sometimes, lying awake, I try to remember how it felt to be warm just from laughter. To race Luca down the lane and taste joy like honey. I can't quite summon it. It's like trying to cup water in your hands, it leaks out faster the tighter you squeeze. And I wonder if that's what growing up means: letting go of softness until there's nothing left but hard, hungry edges.

I've done it once before, but I never truly grew up.

I think about a lot of things. About what to do next, how I was going to make this work.

I run the numbers in my head, coins left in the tin, how long the flour might stretch if I water the dough. I think about whose pockets hang loose at the market. Who looks distracted.

If Mum would even make it through this.

Why I was given a second chance, just to watch my new family die around me? 

Sometimes I'd think about what Papa and Nonno's last moments were like, how they felt, how they were and how they died.

I close my eyes and force my mind to drift somewhere far off, to trenches and a man. I wonder if he felt any of this weight, if he fought becoming cruel the way I do.

[POV SWITCH: LEONARDO RUSSO]

The cold gets into your joints out here. Not the kind you shake off with a fire or a shot of grappa, but the kind that settles deep, like regret. My hands tremble as I pull the blanket tighter, rough wool scraping against skin that feels thinner by the day.

It's been weeks since I felt truly warm. The dampness of the trench is constant. Water collects in small pools, seeps into your boots, and soaks through your socks until even your bones feel sodden. Men cough through the night, hacking up pieces of themselves. Some don't stop coughing. The rest of us try not to watch when their bodies get carted off.

I hold a letter in my hand, creased and smudged from a dozen readings. It's from Mary. Written in her careful hand, telling me about how Richard helps Nan in the kitchen, how he's growing taller, sharper in the face, how his eyes follow everything. "Vecchio spirito," she wrote once. I smiled at that, though it hurt in my chest. Always does when you're too far to hold them.

There's another letter in my pocket I've been meaning to finish. For her. But my hand cramps after just a few lines. The fever makes my fingers clumsy. I close my eyes, press the paper to my lips, hoping that counts for something.

I remember standing in the doorway of our small house, bag slung over my shoulder, the weight of it nothing compared to the weight in my chest. Mary's eyes were red, but dry; her mouth was a tight line. She wouldn't let herself cry in front of Richard. Always the strong one.

Richard clung to my leg, his hair still smelling of soap from the morning's wash. "Where are you going, Nonno?" he asked. His voice was so small. Too small for all this war.

I knelt down and cupped his cheek. "Just off to help keep the bad men away, piccolo mio. You'll look after your Mamma, Nan and your Nonna for me, won't you?"

He nodded, solemn as a priest. "Promise," he whispered.

I pressed my forehead to his. "That's my little soldier."

The truth is, I didn't go for glory. Didn't even really go for duty. I went because a man's got to show he'll stand up when asked. And because extra ration stamps promised a little more bread on the table. Maybe it was foolish, but in hard times, you take whatever scraps of promise are offered.

Now I watch the younger men in our company laugh over rations, play dice in the mud. Their shoulders are still straight, eyes still bright. Mine have started to sag. When I lie down at night, the cough comes tight and cruel, like a fist squeezing the air out of me.

"Piccolo mio,

If you ever read this, I hope you're still keeping that promise. Your Mamma will lean on you more than she says. That's just her way. Help her. Keep your heart kind even when the world isn't. That's strength, too.

Nonno"

My hand shakes. The pencil breaks. I let the letter slip into my pocket again.

The fever's worse tonight. My blanket's damp with sweat. I see shadows that resemble men, and hear voices that sound like home. At some point, I close my eyes and she's there, my Isabella. Young again, hair braided over her shoulder, apron dusted with flour.

She laughs, that small laugh that always tugged at the corners of her mouth. "You've stayed away too long, Leonardo," she says, and her hands cradle my face, warm and sure.

"I was coming home," I tell her. My words feel thick, tongue heavy.

"I know." She presses her forehead to mine, and for the first time in months, I'm not cold.

I think of Richard, of everyone else, of Sunday dinners with bread still warm from the oven. I think of the lavender oil Isabella dabbed behind her ears. I think I might smell it again soon.

"I'll be home soon, amore mio," I whisper.

And then everything is quiet, and the trench fades away.

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