She whispered it like a spell.
Soft, breathless, like she was casting protection over me and hoping it would hold.
"Richard Russo."
That's the name my mother gave me.
It's been four months since I was born into this world—four months of blinking into the bright, drafty cold of London.
Having a mother again feels odd, unsettling even—as though fully embracing her would betray the memory of another mother who once held me, cared for me, and is now beyond my reach. Still, I'm not opposed to her becoming part of my new family. Perhaps, given enough time, the awkwardness will soften into affection.
The seasons have changed from autumn to winter. I've taken to sleeping swaddled beneath thick wool, tucked into the curve of my mother's body where her warmth is strongest.
I'm small, helpless, and silent in ways that frustrate me to no end. But I'm watching, and slowly, I'm learning.
From the few words I've overheard and the shape of the world around me, I've come to a quiet, staggering realization: I've been reincarnated into the past. Into London, England. Somewhere between the end of World War I and the grim approach of the next one.
I know what's coming, even if no one else around me does. They still call it the Great War, as if it was the last.
But I know better. I wasn't a historian, just a man raised on documentaries, textbooks, and the grim legacy of remembrance.
The blackouts, the rations, the bombs, the bodies. History calls it a war, but it was a massacre.
The street we live on is all brick and coal-smudged windows. A narrow terraced home near a butcher, a pub, and a railway line that rattles in the distance. The air smells of soot and boiled potatoes.
The house itself is narrow and tall, like most in the row—three floors if you count the attic, though no one does. The wallpaper is peeling near the skirting boards, and the windows sweat in winter, dripping quietly onto the sill. There's a coal fireplace in every room, but not all of them work, and the heat rarely reaches past the kitchen.
We live upstairs, above my mother's parents. The stairs creak like they remember every step. Down below, the butcher's coat hangs in the hall beside a stained apron and a cracked leather satchel stuffed with ration coupons and bills. The air always smells faintly of onions, soap, and blood.
My room—if it can be called that—is more of a corner, curtained off at the end of my parent's bedroom. The crib was borrowed, not bought, and the mattress inside is wrapped in oilcloth, noisy and cold to the touch. There are no building blocks or mobile—just a single-knitted rabbit with one button eye and a draught that slips through the cracked pane above my head.
Sometimes, I lie there and watch the paper on the ceiling ripple from the wind. There's a small stain just above the cot. I've grown oddly fond of it, like a cloud on a ceiling sky.
At night, when everyone else is asleep, I hear the house breathe—floorboards settling, pipes groaning. This house has a memory, and I feel like it's trying to include me in it.
People nod politely in the street but rarely speak beyond what's necessary. It's a working-class neighbourhood—not rich, not exactly poor either—just ordinary people trying their best to make it through.
There's always bread in the tin and a fire lit by supper.
But we reuse everything—nappies, tea leaves, candle stubs. Nothing is wasted, not because of frugality but necessity. There's no room for extravagance, but never true hunger either.
The butter is stretched, the milk is watered, and the sugar is measured by the ounce in brown paper sacks. If something breaks, it's mended. If something can't be repaired, we learn to live without it.
The house isn't filled with laughter but with effort. My father works with his hands at a sheet metal factory, loading and shifting materials mostly outdoors, coming home smelling of metal and exhaustion. My mother works with her body around the house, taking it slow, still recovering from giving birth.
My mother is seventeen. She is 5 foot 4 and pale, with shoulder-length brown hair and wide blue eyes that watch me like I might vanish. She's young, younger than I would ever have imagined a mother being, but she's fierce in her own quiet way.
I can feel the weight of responsibility pressing down on her whenever she picks me up. She's still soft, though—skin like milk, voice like wind through curtains. There's strength in her, but she doesn't quite know it yet.
My father is nineteen—5 foot 11—with dark hair and brown eyes. He is tanned from work. His hands are rough, his shoulders broad, and when he smiles, it's rare and slow.
They met as children when his family first arrived from Italy after the Great War. I've pieced that much together from the stories my grandparents murmur over tea.
I still find it envious. They're so young—younger than I was—but they already achieved my dream... a family.
My father looks at my mother like he's still surprised he ended up with her. He looks at me like I'm a puzzle he hasn't figured out how to solve yet.
It was a hard journey for them, fleeing loss and looking for something like safety here in England. His parents still slip into Italian when emotions run high—grief, frustration, or joy—but I don't understand a word of it. It just sounds like music I'm not meant to dance to.
Sometimes Latin slips in, too—sharper and older. It sounds like prayer, even when it's not.
My father's parents—my Italian grandparents—live just three streets away.
His mother is 35, 5 foot 3, dark-haired with one or two streaks of grey. Her long hair is often tied back with whatever cloth is nearby. She has brown eyes and slightly tanned skin and is always in a rush. She's a nurse, efficient and no-nonsense, though she sings sometimes when no one else is listening.
His father, my grandfather, is 37. He is 5 foot 8 inches with brown hair, eyes, and tanned skin. He is a bricklayer and a veteran of the Great War. He walks with a limp from something that happened in France. He doesn't speak much, but when he does, it's usually something that ends a conversation. You can feel the war still living inside his bones.
On my mother's side, her parents are even closer—just downstairs. Her mother is small, 5 foot 2, with brown hair, blue eyes, and a laugh that comes easier than the others. She's also a nurse, and she's usually the one who takes me when my mother needs to rest. Her hair is long, always braided or pinned up, and it smells faintly of soap.
Her father is a butcher. He's 5 foot 9 with dirty blonde hair, brown eyes, and the smell of blood clinging to his coat and fingernails. He takes pills for an injury he doesn't talk about. Another veteran of the Great War, though his pain seems quieter, less physical than my other grandfather's.
He's gruff but kind. He holds me carefully like I might bruise or break, and sometimes, he mutters things under his breath—old regrets or names I don't recognize.
They're all so young—my grandparents are in their thirties, barely out of the war that shaped them. The men came back with broken bodies and the women with broken nights.
But they love, all of them. Not always with words but with food, fussing, arguments, and long silences that carry weight. It's messy but real.
They call me "the little miracle." I'm the first grandchild on both sides, and no one quite knows how to act around me yet. There's a reverence in how I'm passed from arm to arm, weighed, watched, and whispered to.
Sometimes, I catch them staring—not at me, but through me. As if wondering what I'll remember of what they whisper once I'm old enough to speak.
London is grey and bustling, coal-smoked and noisy. Horses still clatter past some mornings, though motorcars are growing more common. The milkman comes early, and everyone listens to the wireless at night—especially when the news talks about Germany.
The city feels old and tired but still alive.
I've walked these streets before, in my last life. They were cleaner but just as congested. The buses look different now, the uniforms sharper, and the women's skirts longer. But the undercurrent is the same: life ticking forward with worry just beneath the surface.
The world thinks it's recovering, that peace is settling in. But I can feel it like a storm behind the clouds. War is coming again.
I know how it ends. But I don't know where I'll be when it begins or who I'll be by the time it does.
I'm growing—not just physically but mentally, as well. After many years of self-isolation, I'm learning to open up and express myself again.
Four months in this tiny body. Four months of slowly learning to smile, to roll, to reach. Four months of crying purely out of frustration at being unable to speak. Four months filled with lullabies and the rhythm of rain on the windowpane.
Even silence here feels full, as if the world is waiting for me to grow into it.
I have time now—real time. The kind I once wasted scrolling through a phone screen, waiting for something to matter.
I now have that—something that matters. A family. A second chance. A name that means something to someone.
My name is Richard Russo.
I am small, but I remember.
And I am not ready to forget.