Que sera, sera

Amani Jacobs tilted her head, peering at the delicate script inked on her mother’s shoulder. “Mom, what does that tattoo mean? ‘Que sera, sera’?”

The dark red letters curved in elegant loops, ending in a gold-trimmed rose that looked real enough to touch.

Gianna Jacobs smiled, a flicker of memory in her eyes. “It means whatever will be, will be. An old friend taught me that.”

“Friend, huh? Do I know this friend?”

Gianna chuckled, but said nothing.

“Moooom,” Amani whined, nudging her gently. “I’m twenty-two and have never even seen you go on a date! I’m old enough for you to tell me your dirty deeds of the past.”

“You say that like you think I had a wild phase.”

Amani raised an eyebrow. “You have a tattoo, Mom. With Latin script. That screams mysterious romance and mild recklessness.”

“Don’t you have a long drive back to LSU? It’s almost ten.” Gianna deflected.

Amani groaned, kissed her mom’s cheek, and grabbed her keys. “Fine. Keep your secrets. Love you, Mom.”

Gianna watched the door close, the sound echoing through the quiet house. The silence didn’t feel empty—it felt full. Full of memories. Full of stories unsaid.

She walked into her bedroom and opened the closet. From the back corner, she pulled out a weathered box and sat cross-legged on the floor, heart already drifting toward a summer that lived at the edge of memory and always in her heart.

⸻

The moon hung low above the Chilean hills, pale and watchful.

His knuckles brushed her cheek, his deep brown eyes studying her like a painting. “I’ve never seen a face like yours,” he murmured, fingertips tracing her jaw.

Her breath caught as his hand moved to her neck, his touch feather-light, raising goosebumps along her arms. “There aren’t many faces like mine,” she smirked, eyelids drifting shut.

“There’s this pull,” he whispered. “Tener conexión. Something in you sees the part of me I buried—a volatile part that would hurt anyone who tried to take your smile away.”

His lips hovered just above hers. The night wrapped around them like a secret.

“Beneath the stars we dream to see,

Que sera, sera,

whatever will be, will be…” he sang softly against her skin.

“As time hums its tune in a quiet decree,

Que Sera, Sera,

Whatever will be, will be.”

“And what does it decree?” she asked, barely audible.

“That you are mine, and I am yours.”

She blinked, heart thudding. “We’ve only known each other a month.” But even before the words left her mouth, she knew they weren’t true. In those weeks, they unraveled each other slowly—like love notes folded in secret places. They traded dreams under streetlamps and kissed between confessions. Time didn’t make them strangers; it made them extraordinary.

“One month that changed everything.” He leaned back enough to meet her eyes. “Marry me, Gia.”

“What?” she exclaimed. “I fly home tomorrow!”

“Then don’t say yes. Not yet. But give me something else instead till you do.” He grinned mischievously, his hand squeezing hers like a secret pact.

He pulled Gianna to her feet, wrapping the blanket around her, and drove into the heart of Valparaíso—its cobbled streets alive with color and music. That night, every moment felt like the start of forever.

⸻

Gianna hissed as the needle dragged across her shoulder, the steady buzz filling the dim parlor. The sting bit into her skin, sharp and insistent, but she welcomed the pain—it anchored her, made the moment real. He sat close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from him, his hand resting lightly over hers, thumb drawing slow circles against her knuckles as though to steady her.

“Why the red rose?” he asked, voice pitched low, almost reverent.

“Because those will be our wedding flowers.” She smiled, breath shaky, voice soft but certain.

He grinned widely, eyes gleaming as if he could see their future spread out before them. “And our daughter—her name will be Amani.”

The name lingered between them, more vow than suggestion. Gianna grinned dreamily, her chest tight, holding his gaze. Against reason, against time, she let herself believe in this inimitable fantasy, daring to imagine that it could become their forever.

⸻

As Gianna returns to the present, she finds herself opening the old box and pulling a dusty journal from where it’s been hidden for years. The emotions of the past flooding her at once as she feels the complete devastation she felt that day. The first page holds a yellowed newspaper clipping with a headline that reads:

Local Man Killed in Collision on Route 7

The date— the same day she flew back to Louisiana. She had been planning her return to him, full of dreams and certainty. But he never answered her calls.

When she searched, she found this. His beautiful eyes stared back at her from a grainy black-and-white photo, frozen in print.

Her fingers trembled as she smoothed the brittle edge of the clipping, memory rushing in with a force she had spent years trying to contain. She could still feel the shock of that afternoon—the way her pulse hammered as she dialed his number again and again, certain there had been some mistake. At the airport, she had carried her suitcase with one hand and the rose he gave her in the other, rehearsing what she would say when she saw him again. But instead of his voice, there was silence. Instead of his arms, there was this headline.

She remembered walking to the payphone in a haze, pressing her forehead against the cool glass, the world tilting while strangers brushed past. How cruel, she thought, that the sky above Louisiana had been a perfect blue that day, as though nothing had been broken.

She had folded the article with shaking hands and tucked it into her journal, unable to throw it away, unwilling to accept that love could vanish so suddenly. Even now, decades later, her chest ached with the echo of that grief—the kind of pain that never fully fades but instead carves space for resilience.

She turns the page. The delicate red rose he gave her as she was about to board her plane is tucked inside, now dry and golden at the edges.

Tears trail down her cheek as she places a new photo beside the rose: Amani, laughing on the porch, radiant in the sunlight, full of the spirit he once embodied.

“She was the decree,” Gianna murmurs as she returns the journal to its hiding place. “Not pain. Not secrets. But strength passed down to your daughter, Amani Rose.”

She walks to the bedroom mirror and lets her eyes settle on the reflection of her tattoo.

“Que sera, sera.”

She whispers it—not as surrender, but as a quiet promise.

Whatever will be, will be.

And still, she stands; marked not by loss, but by love that lives on.