Holding On

22 Nov 2025

The cold had settled into the furniture and the pile of blankets where they lived. The apartment had lost the smell of yeast and damp towels; now, it smelled only of old dust.

Sami giggled, a sound brittle as dried paper. “Do the wolf, Papa.”

Adam’s hands shifted in the flashlight’s pale cone. The batteries were failing, casting the shadow against the wall in soft, fuzzy edges. He curled his fingers, and the snout appeared—not a monster, just a creature.

“He is quiet tonight,” Adam whispered.

“Is he hunting?” Sami asked, eyes fixed on the plaster.

“No. He is waiting. Wolves are very good at waiting.”

Sami tucked his chin into the oversized collar of the grey cardigan. The wool was unraveling at the cuff, swallowing the boy’s small hands. “What is he waiting for?”

“For the moon,” Adam said. “And for a biscuit. A round one.”

“The blue tin,” Sami said. He didn’t ask it as a question. He said it to test the weight of the memory. “The one with the sugar.”

Adam looked at the shadow-wolf. He didn’t make it howl or dance. He let it breathe on the wall, his own hand rising and falling with his chest. “Yes. The blue tin.”

Sami looked away from the shadow. He looked at the kitchen door, closed to keep the draft out.

“Mama took the key to the cupboard,” Sami said.

Adam stared at the boy’s profile. The logic was new, a small architecture built to make sense of the empty shelves.

“She did,” Adam said. “She is keeping it safe.”

Outside, the darkness vibrated. It wasn’t a sharp sound, but a low, rolling thud, like a heavy wardrobe being dragged across the floor of the apartment above. The windowpane hummed in its frame, a resonance felt in the teeth before it was heard in the ears.

Sami didn’t flinch. “It is closer.”

Adam stiffened. He had been tracking the noise for three nights. Two days ago, it was distant thunder. Yesterday, it shook the floorboards. Tonight, it was in the street.

“A little closer,” Adam admitted.

“Are we moving to the south?”

The question hung in the vapor of their breath. The south. A static-filled promise from the radio before it died. Warmth. Crowds. Safety. But to go there was to leave the door unlocked. To accept that the footsteps on the stairs would never be hers.

“Not yet,” Adam said. He swallowed, his throat dry. “We are waiting for the signal.”

“What signal?”

“The… the morning.”

The flashlight flickered. It didn’t pop; the filament simply turned the color of a dying coal, dissolving the wolf into the gray plaster. Then, black.

The darkness was instant. It rushed into the room, collapsing the distance between the walls.

“Papa?” Sami’s voice was small, unmoored.

“I’m here.” Adam reached out. He found the coarse wool of the cardigan, then the small shoulder beneath it, and pulled him in.

“The wolf is gone.”

“He’s just sleeping,” Adam whispered. He clicked the plastic switch back and forth. A dry, useless click. The last anchor was cut.

They sat in the dark. Without the cone of light to hold their focus, the world expanded terrifyingly. The thudding outside grew rhythmic. Thump… thump… thump.

For a second, Adam’s heart leaped—it sounded like a fist on wood. A frantic knocking. He lifted his head, turning toward the entryway, his breath caught in a painful hitch, waiting for her voice.

But the rhythm didn’t stop. It wasn’t a knock. It was the mechanical stride of the concussions, walking up the street.

“Are we still waiting for the signal?” Sami murmured.

Adam looked toward the invisible kitchen, the empty shelf. He tried to summon the scent of her, but he could only smell the dust of the crumbling city. “Yes,” he said. “We are waiting.”

“Okay,” Sami breathed. “I’m good at waiting.”

The boy shifted, nesting into the curve of Adam’s body. Slowly, the tension drained from Sami’s small frame. His breathing evened out, becoming a soft, steady counter-rhythm to the percussion of the night.

Adam rested his hand over Sami’s heart.

Up and down.

Up and down.

The rhythm was faint through the layers of wool, but persistent.

Adam stared into the crushing blackness. He listened, straining against the thunder, begging for the squeak of a hinge, the specific cadence of her heel on the parquet.

Silence.

The floor lurched beneath them, a dry groan from the building’s joints.

Adam looked back down at the bundle in his arms. The boy was asleep.

Adam closed his fingers, gripping the fabric of the grey cardigan. He felt the vibration of the boy’s life against his palm, and the vibration of the floor against his legs. He could not hold both.

He turned his face away from the kitchen. He pressed his cheek into the boy’s hair, inhaling the scent of dust and scalp. A single tear trailed into his beard, cooling instantly.

“Sleep now, little wolf,” Adam whispered. “Say goodbye to the room.”

Sami didn’t stir.

“Tomorrow,” Adam breathed, “we walk.”