After Luca

“Are you there, God? It’s me…”

The boy’s voice was soft, unsure, caught somewhere between prayer and despair.

He sat on the kitchen floor of their apartment in Modena, arms wrapped around his knees, his brother’s old hoodie drowning his small frame. The room was lit only by the flickering yellow glow from the street lamp outside. It cast long, tired shadows on the tiled floor.

“…It’s me, Matteo,” he whispered.

He hadn’t spoken to God in nearly two years. Not since Luca, his older brother, had died in that overfilled hospital just across town. Not since the lockdowns and white vans and ambulance sirens faded into a silence his family never recovered from.

They weren’t always like this.

Their home once echoed with laughter, football matches on TV, the smell of Nonna’s rosemary focaccia. Luca used to play guitar by the window on weekends, his voice drawing in the neighbors like a Sunday church bell. Their father, once a stern but loving man, would yell mockingly at the referee on screen. Their mother, Anna, always had a way of keeping things whole tea in the evenings, stories from her childhood, her hands forever busy with something gardening, cleaning, comforting.

But the virus took Luca, and with him, it took everything warm.

The night he was admitted to the hospital, Matteo had seen fear in Luca’s eyes, real fear. Even then, everyone told him it was “mild,” that Luca was young and strong, that he’d come home in a few days.

Instead, they got a call. And an urn. No proper farewell. No final hug.

From that moment on, the house in Via San Lorenzo was never the same.

His father, Gianni, grew silent at first—then bitter. He drank too much, slammed doors too hard, cursed at the television. Matteo learned to avoid the sound of the bottle uncorking.

His mother turned to work. She buried herself in hospital shifts, refused to talk about Luca, and stopped setting the dinner table for four. When Matteo asked questions, she responded with hollow nods and told him to focus on school.

And Nonna, sweet forgetful Nonna, began to slip into her own world. She mistook dates. Forgot Luca was gone. Sometimes she asked when he’d be back from university.

No one corrected her anymore.

And Matteo?

He floated.

Unseen. Unheard.

He slept in Luca’s room now by choice. The smell of old cologne and wood polish comforted him. The shelves still held Luca’s books, his football trophy from Bologna, and a half-filled sketchbook with gentle pencil strokes Matteo traced with trembling fingers each night.

He’d stopped logging into online classes months ago. His grades were now background noise. The teachers had stopped asking. Friends did too.

But tonight this silent, power-cut night something pulled him to the floor. He hadn’t planned to speak. But the words escaped.

“Are you there, God?” he asked again, voice slightly stronger. “It’s me… Matteo. I don’t know if you remember me. I used to talk to you when I was younger. When things were okay. When Luca would sneak me chocolate during Lent and tell me you’d forgive it.”

He smiled bitterly.

“I don’t want miracles. I just… I don’t want us to fall apart forever.”

He looked up. No lightning bolt. No voice. Just the fridge clicking off, and the wind rustling olive branches outside the balcony.

“They don’t see me anymore. Papà drinks. Mamma hides behind her hospital. And Nonna, she thinks I’m him sometimes. I don’t know how to fix it. Luca would have. He always knew what to do.”

His breath caught in his throat. The ache spread like ink through his chest.

“I wish it had been me instead of him.”

The words slipped out before he could stop them. And once they did, they sat heavy in the room.

He stood up abruptly and walked into the hallway. The apartment was old floorboards creaked beneath his steps. The living room still had the old wooden crucifix above the door. Below it, a framed photo of the whole family from Christmas three years ago.

Luca in the center, holding his guitar. Matteo, beaming, half-hugging his brother. Anna with flour on her sweater. Gianni pouring wine. Nonna holding a panettone and smiling like she was still a girl.

He stared at it until his eyes blurred.

Then, without fully knowing why, he turned and knocked softly on his mother’s door.

“who?” she called out.

“It’s me,” Matteo replied.

There was a pause. Then the door opened a crack. Her face appeared tired, dark circles under her eyes. She was still in her nurse’s uniform. Her phone buzzed on silent behind her.

“Mamma… can we talk?”

She looked at him, really looked at him for the first time in weeks.

“Of course,” she whispered.

They sat on her bed. Matteo spoke first.

“I miss him,” he said, voice breaking. “But I miss you, too.”

Anna’s eyes welled with tears, and she pulled him into a hug that felt both foreign and familiar.

“I miss him every second,” she said, voice shaking. “But I forgot you needed me too.”

For a long while, they just sat there. No words. Just arms around each other, the smell of fabric softener and exhaustion filling the space.

Later, they joined Nonna in the living room. She was humming an old Neapolitan lullaby and knitting with tangled yarn. When she saw them, she smiled gently.

“Matteo, caro,” she said, reaching for his hand. “Did Luca come home yet?”

Matteo looked at her, and for once, didn’t feel like correcting her. He just held her hand and sat beside her.

Gianni appeared quietly, standing in the doorway, holding his glass of wine. For the first time in ages, he didn’t drink it. He just looked at them, his wife, his son, his mother and walked in slowly.

He sat down.

Said nothing.

But stayed.

And that was something.

That night, they stayed in the same room. Anna made chamomile tea. Gianni turned on Luca’s old Spotify playlist. A few words were exchanged. No one talked about Luca directly, but he was there, woven into the silence, the tea, the music.

Later, in the dim hallway, Matteo passed the crucifix again.

He whispered, “Are you there, God? It’s me… Matteo.”

No thunder.

Just peace.

Maybe that’s how healing begins, not with answers, but with someone daring to break the silence.