I reached out to the letter,s. but my fingers were shaking so hard that I couldn’t get it. Luke noticed and gently pushed the glass of water towards me, while Matteo sat in the chair to my right.

I started crying so hard that the boys hugged me again.

That evening, the chocolate cake remained almost untouched.

We stayed until after midnight, talking about Marco, Laura and all the things we had no courage to tell ourselves over the years.

Luke told me that in the sixth grade he had written in a composition about me, but he called her “Paola” because she didn’t know if I was allowed to call me a mother.

Matteo confessed to me that when he was a kid, he told his colleagues that he had two mothers: one who lived in the sky and one who worked in the hospital.

I never knew it.

And listening to them, I understood something that had escaped me for fourteen years.

They didn’t love me any less because they were calling me by my name.

They just found their own way to reconcile their love for Laura with their love for me.