Mayo's body was shaking.
Not from cold. Not from fear. The particular trembling that comes to a person when something too large has entered them and their body doesn't know what to do with it yet.
He stood in the living room with his eyes on the floor and his hands loose at his sides and he was seeing nothing, just the inside of something that had no walls.
Toviro went to him and gripped both his shoulders and shook him gently. "Mayo. Control yourself."
Mayo came back slowly. His eyes found Toviro's.
His mouth was slightly open.
"You're a man," Toviro said. "You have to be strong enough to carry this."
Mayo's eyes filled. Tears came down his face without a sound.
Elina said it softly. "They came for all of us, Mayo. Our parents didn't survive either. You are not the only one." She paused.
"We made a vow to take back what was taken. And you are part of that vow."
His legs gave.
He went down to the floor and sat there with his eyes on the ground and his hands on his knees, the tears falling steadily, without drama, without sound, just falling because there was nowhere else for them to go.
Mina lowered herself beside him.
She put her hands on his shoulders and turned his face toward her.
He looked at her. She looked back, her eyes dry and steady.
"Your father was a strong man," she said. "A brave man. A man who kept his word until the very end. And you are his son. His blood runs through you."
She pushed herself upright and pulled him with her, her hands on his shoulders, pressing upward until he was standing on unsteady legs.
Then she raised both hands and wiped the tears from his face. "Don't cry, my boy. Your father didn't want his son to cry like this."
Mayo's tears kept coming.
She shook him gently. "Don't cry, Mayo."
The tears didn't stop. He stood motionless as she shook him, having no control over himself.
His eyes were fixed forward, but he wasn't looking at anything. His mind was somewhere else.
Mina shook him faster now, still saying, "Don't cry, Mayo. Mayo, don't. My boy." But her voice wasn't reaching his ears.
She gave him a sharp slap across the cheek.
Not hard. Not in anger. The kind of slap that a mother gives when words aren't reaching and the only way through is through.
His face turned to the side, and his tears flew with the motion. The room was completely still.
Mina brought his face back slowly. Her eyes were soft and full of something that had no clean name. "Don't cry, Mayo. Your father's spirit lives in you."
The tears slowed.
Mayo's voice came out quietly. "Where is he? I mean... Where is his grave? I want to go and see him."
He looked at Toviro. Toviro said, "We made a promise to them. That we wouldn't show our faces until we see them living again."
Mayo's eyes went red. "What the hell are you talking about?" His voice was rising. "What is this? He died. That's it. It's not a movie. People don't come back from death. This is real life." He breathed.
"Tell me where his grave is. I want to see my father."
Before anyone could respond, Ozair stepped forward. His voice was not calm.
"They slaughtered my family. My dad's body was covered in wounds. My mom's face was half burned. My little Ava—" His voice broke slightly and then held.
"Her whole body was black. Completely burned. Elina's house collapsed on her mother. We dug through the rubble for hours. Aryan's father's neck was turned the wrong direction. His mother was killed without mercy." He breathed.
"That was hell."
Ozair was breathing hard now, after saying it all in one breath.
Silence.
Mayo was looking at him with his mouth slightly open. The shock was visible in his eyes, moving through him as each detail landed separately.
He turned and ran outside without a word.
Everyone watched him go. Ozair breathed hard. The others just watched, feeling what Mayo felt.
Elina said slowly, "You didn't have to tell him all that."
But Aryan replied instead of Ozair. "He had to know it."
The afternoon passed grey and quiet.
Evening came slowly, the sky going orange at the edges.
They sat in the living room and Mina cooked in the kitchen and the smell of it moved through the house and none of them mentioned it.
Mayo hadn't returned.
Ozair stood. "I'll go find him."
Elina stood at the same time. "Ozair."
He looked at her.
"I'll go," she said. "I know how to talk to him in situations like this. You'll just make it worse."
Toviro said, "She's right. Sit down, Ozair."
Ozair looked at the open door for a moment. Then he sat.
"Where would he be?" Elina asked.
Aryan said without hesitation, "The riverbank. That's his place."
Ozair nodded. "He always goes there."
Elina turned and walked out into the orange evening.
The road was strange. Quiet in the wrong way—not peaceful, but emptied, the bodies gone from where they had been, only the damage remaining.
Fallen walls. Cracked stone. A city that had survived something it was still understanding.
Elina walked quickly, her eyes moving across everything. Then she closed them for one step, opened them again, and let it go.
There was somewhere she needed to be, and she couldn't carry the road and Mayo at the same time.
She ran the roads and arrived at the riverbank.
The sky was burning orange and gold, the light coming at an angle that made the wet grass along the river glow like copper mirrors.
She moved along the sides of the riverbank, looking around for Mayo.
She walked for minutes but couldn't find him.
The bridge came into view. She slowed, stepped onto it, looked left, then right, then down.
There he was.
Below the bridge on the bank, sitting in the grass with his feet toward the water, hands loose on his knees, looking at the river the way people look at things when they aren't actually seeing them.
She made her way down, walked toward him and sat beside him without asking permission.
The water moved. The sky held its orange. Neither of them spoke for a moment.
Then Elina said, "I used to think grief was loud."
Mayo didn't answer.
"I thought it would be screaming. Breaking things. But it's not." She looked at the water.
"It's this. Sitting here while the world keeps going, not knowing how to take a single step."
A bird moved across the sky. The river kept going. Mayo said nothing but he was listening.
"I remember your father," she said. "The way he used to put you on his shoulders even when you were too old for it. Even when you'd say stop, people are watching." She smiled a little at the memory.
"He never cared who was watching. He only cared that you could see further than him."
A tear moved down Mayo's cheek.
"He used to say a man isn't someone who doesn't cry. A man is someone who keeps walking after the crying."
Mayo's voice came out cracked and very small. "He's really gone."
"He's really gone," she said.
"I didn't even say goodbye." His whole body shook once. "I couldn't even tell him I loved him. Not even once in his lifetime. The last thing I said to him—I don't even remember. Something about dinner. Something small and stupid. And now he's—"
He couldn't finish.
Elina reached out and took his hand. Not tightly, not pulling. Just there.
"He knew," she said.
"You don't know that."
"I do. Fathers like yours don't need the words. He saw it every time you looked at him. Every time you got angry over something small, that was love too. That was you caring enough to feel anything."
Mayo let out a sound that was half laugh and half breaking. "That's stupid."
"Yeah," she said. "It is. But it's also true."
The sky was shifting from orange to deep gold to the first traces of violet. The water's surface changed with it, the reflection becoming something darker and richer.
She squeezed his hand. "You asked where his grave is. Toviro told you what we promised. And you're right—this is not a movie. People don't come back just like that." She paused.
"But that is exactly why we have to live. Not because it's easy. Because it's the only way to make sure they didn't die for nothing."
Mayo turned toward her for the first time. Really saw her. His eyes were red, swollen, and exhausted. But they were seeing her now.
"What if I can't?" he said. "What if I'm not strong enough for any of this?"
She looked back at him.
The evening light was on her face. She didn't look away. "Then you lean on us. On Toviro, on Mina, on Ozair and Aryan. That's not weakness. That is what a family does."
She lifted her free hand and touched the side of his face gently, the side that still held the faint mark of the slap. Not to fix anything. Just to be there.
"You don't have to be okay tonight. You don't have to be okay tomorrow. But you can't stay under this bridge forever. Your father didn't raise a son who hides."
Mayo's breath came unsteady. Another tear fell. But this time he didn't turn away from it.
"Stay with me," he said. It came out like a question.
She moved closer until their shoulders were touching. She kept her hand in his.
"I'm not going anywhere," she said.
They sat there as the violet deepened and the first stars appeared, faint and far, the water moving below them and the grass still glowing faintly with the last of the light.
A cricket started somewhere behind them. Then another. Then another, and the evening filled itself in around them without being asked.
After a long time Elina said, "It's getting dark."
Mayo looked at the water. At their hands. At the bridge above them. "Yeah," he said.
His voice was hoarse and tired but it was there.
"They're waiting," she said. "Toviro is probably pacing. Ozair is pretending he's not worried. Aryan is quiet in the way that means more than anything he'd say. And Mina is cooking."
His breath caught slightly at the last one. He swallowed.
She looked at him. "Should we go back?"
The evening was still around them. The stars waited.
Then Mayo said, "Let's go."
He stood. She rose beside him, and they walked back through the orange grass toward the lights of the city, toward the house, toward the people who had kept their word and come back.
Together.