Nico sat on a fencepost at the end of the farmland that had been left to him after his father’s untimely death no more than a year and a half ago. He did not want to look back on that time, but when everything in the farm reminded him of the family he’d lost, it was difficult at times and almost impossible at others.

Mournful notes drifted from the wooden flute that Nico held to his lips. Behind him, much of the farmland that had lain fallow since the last winter—the last time that he had had help with the management of the farm.

The song Nico played was a lilting and grieving one. It was difficult not to grieve. The solitude of being a lone farm boy on a property much too big for one man to handle, much less a boy just on the cusp of becoming one, was almost crushing.

Nico was at a loss for what to do. He hadn’t known where to go or whom to talk to for the longest time. “Bianca,” he whispered, to no one in particular. The notes from his flute fell silent. “I wish you were here,” he said.