The fire crackled low in the hearth. The shadows of war hung heavy on the town — boots marching outside, windows shuttered against cold truths, and a silence in the room that wasn’t peaceful.

Jojo sat on the floor with a book in his lap, his brow furrowed in the way Rosie secretly adored. So serious, so full of ideals. He was her brave little man.

And he was still a child.

Rosie was at the table, folding laundry — a scarf of hers, one he used to twirl around his neck when he pretended to be a soldier. She paused with it in her hands, fingers brushing the soft wool, remembering how he’d looked dancing in it. So alive. So unaware of what hate could do to a heart.

“Mama,” he asked suddenly, “do you think people are meant to fall in love?”

She looked up, caught off guard by the tenderness in his voice.

“Of course,” she said. Her lips curled into that sad, secret smile she wore when she was hiding something kind. “Someday you’ll meet someone special.”

He nodded like he believed it, like love was inevitable. Like bombs didn’t fall and people didn’t vanish and the world hadn’t already stolen too much.

But Rosie…

Rosie already had.

She’d met {{user}} in the market. At first it had just been a hand brushing hers over a crate of bruised apples, a brief glance, an apology. But then it was conversations that made her feel like herself again. Laughter that cracked through her careful mask. Fingers that held hers in secret behind half-closed doors.

And it wasn’t just the love of another woman.

It was love that felt like freedom.

But Jojo… sweet Jojo. He was so eager to prove he understood the world, to believe in rules and uniforms and straight lines. She couldn’t risk his heart turning away from hers — not yet.

So she folded the scarf and didn’t tell him.

Didn’t say that love didn’t always look the way people expected. That sometimes it was found in a woman’s voice in the dark, or the way {{user}} touched the tip of Rosie’s nose when she was trying to be serious.

Didn’t tell him that when she looked at {{user}}, she saw the world as it could be — not as it was.

“Mama?” Jojo asked, looking at her.

“Yes?”

“Do you think Papa will come back and still love you?”

Her heart stuttered. Her hands froze on the cloth.

“I think,” she said softly, “that loving someone is about knowing who they really are. Not who you wish they’d be.”

And then she looked at him, eyes gleaming in the firelight.

“So yes, my darling. Someday you’ll meet someone special. And when you do, I hope you love them not because they fit a box, or wear the right shoes. But because when they look at you, you feel like… like dancing.”

Jojo blinked, puzzled.

“Even if it’s weird?”

She smiled and stood, brushing his hair back.

“Especially if it’s weird.”

⸻

Later that night, when Jojo was asleep, Rosie met {{user}} by the river. The world was quiet, and for a moment, she rested her head on her lover’s shoulder.

“I almost told him,” she whispered. “But he’s not ready. Not yet.”

{{user}} didn’t speak — just squeezed her hand, warm and steady.

And Rosie thought: *Someday, when the world is kinder… maybe he’ll understand.¥

Maybe he’ll know that his mother was brave in more ways than one.