Marble
When her father noticed the car too, she saw his body straighten.
The car stopped halfway up the hill. It died so undramatically. There was no loud bang. No plumes of smoke. No warning lights lit up like flares. No beacons burning on the hillside. The old engine simply coughed, then stilled. Daniel turned the key in the ignition. He twisted it and listened for a spark of life, but the click was followed by deep silence.
“Not now,” Sophia loudly said, “This stupid car!”
Daniel tried again. He shook his head and prayed for some momentum. The mechanic at the garage had warned him that this day would come, but he’d hoped for just a few more months. Perhaps even another year.
He turned the metal key once more. Another click.
The engine remained lifeless.
He sighed and leaned back in his seat. His sitting bones and solid thighs had left soft indents in the leather over time. Daniel had owned the grey Sedan since his Freshman year of college, and together they’d shared miles and miles of moments. Now the car felt like a part of him. An extension of his person. Something his wife could never fully understand.
“I really can’t be late for work,” Sophia groaned beside him.
She was staring at the moulded plastic dashboard, and Daniel wasn’t quite sure if she was talking to the car or him.
A sharp click resonated through the car as Sophia took her seatbelt off, pulled a hair tie off her narrow wrist and dragged her hair into a top knot. Daniel watched her as single strand of hair escaped, and it fell like evening light across her forehead. She rummaged through her canvas bag. Her lips were puckered with impatience, and her brow was creased, but even rumpled she looked beautiful to him.
“I know you can’t,” Daniel sorrowfully said, imagining the flurry of Fourth Graders who would be waiting in Sophia’s classroom very shortly. ‘My boss won’t thank me either,’ he added. But it was hard for him to think of working in the restaurant, when faced with such a monumental loss. The death of his beloved car. Instead, he gripped the smooth curve of the steering wheel and held on a little tighter, as Sophia dumped a blister pack of Tylenol, some tampons and an open packet of Twizzlers in her lap, whilst searching for her mobile phone.
Small fingers breached the space between the two front seats, and Daniel felt his daughter slowly pat his back. A rhythmic pulse between his shoulder blades that tapped out time and marked its constant passing. The motion brought him back into the moment.
“Did we break the car?” Luna quietly asked.
Her voice was low with worry.
“No,” Sophia bluntly said, her eyes fixated on her phone as she scrolled through all her contacts. “The car was old, and nothing lasts forever,” she reminded both her husband and her daughter.
Luna nodded with solemnity and stroked the softness of her father’s hair, the way he stroked her forehead when she couldn’t fall asleep at night, when she imagined monsters lurking in the corners of the wardrobe or compressed into the dark spaces beneath her bed. Monsters her father told her were not real.
“That’s sad,” she finally whispered to her parents and although he didn’t say a word, Daniel thought she’d put it perfectly.
Sophia pushed her door open and the car filled with a shock of icy air.
“Come on,” she said, her voice warming. “It’s just a car. We should have replaced the old thing years ago. Let’s push it to the side,” she said, and Sophia gently squeezed her husband’s thigh.
Daniel looked outside, finally shifting his attention from the car. The sky above was pale and bleached, the landscape leached of any colour. Wooden houses lined the quiet street, and there were piles of greyish snow heaped along the sidewalks that resembled icy funeral pyres. There was no traffic. No people.
“Okay,” he finally said, and as Daniel climbed out the car, Luna jumped out too, before either parent could stop her.
“Not there. Wait by the curb!” Daniel firmly told his daughter, but he didn’t need to raise his voice.
Daniel watched her skip across the empty street to the protection of the sidewalk where she nudged the piles of compact snow with the edges of her school shoes. Satisfied that she was safe he turned back to Sophia, and Luna finally dared to take another peek.
Tightly wrapped inside her tiny fingers was a small translucent marble that used to be her father’s. She had taken it from out the tin that he kept inside the cupboard in the downstairs den, tucked beside a graduation yearbook and a messy stack of photos from his childhood, her father not her father without his smudge of charcoal beard. Luna knew she wasn’t meant to help herself to any of her parents’ things and so she’d kept the marble secret.
The marble was a perfect sphere. A round, transparent chrysalis that cocooned a swirl of twisted gold. Luna planned to show it to her friends, and she imagined their bright faces when they saw it. Their eyes would light in wonder. At her star caught in an orb of glass. At the magic trapped inside a moment.
Jake had been awake for nineteen hours. Fatigue gritted his eyes like sand, as the SUV moved slowly through the silent streets. He was almost at the end of his routine patrol, and the tiredness was stifling. There was nothing happening on this route. Nothing that seemed unusual.
And then he saw the car stopped at an angle. A grey Sedan left slanted in the residential street. A visual slash in the monotony. Two adults stood beside the car and a child waited on the curb. Jake’s attention sharpened instantly.
“There’s a vehicle blocking the road,” muttered the agent sat beside him, confirming what was obvious.
Jake leaned a little further forward and scrutinised the grey Sedan.
“Pull up,” he firmly said, his chest tightening.
Luna was the first to spot the SUV. Her parents were trying to formulate a plan, but she wasn’t really listening. Instead, she clutched the marble in her hand, felt the orb press deep into her palm, like a breath trapped in a human lung. When her father noticed the car too, she saw his body straighten.
The car rolled to a stop, just too far away for comfort and three men stepped out, their demeanours hidden under baseball caps and face masks, their silhouettes emboldened by dark jackets.
“Sorry about the road.” Daniel propelled the words towards them. He was attempting to sound casual, but the string of vowels and consonants were strangled by the muscles of his throat, and the words came out compressed, too tight. “We’ve broken down,’ he tried again, and he looked towards the family car.
Daniel waited for the men to say something, say anything, or to come a little closer, but no one replied. Nobody moved.
Sophia glanced towards her husband, but he was looking at the group of men. Their demeanour and their large black shapes reminded her of hungry bears, like the one they’d seen in Michigan the previous August. The world felt suddenly dangerous, and the air felt thin.
Meanwhile, Luna waited on the curb. She could sense inherent danger and her tiny shoulders flexed and tensed. She clutched the marble in her palm and when she cracked her fingers open very slightly, she caught a glimpse of glittering gold, and it reminded her of rays of frozen sunlight.
Jake was the first to make a move. As he walked towards the family his boots sounded like striking fists.
“Morning,” Jake said.
The word carried a weight far too heavy for a greeting. Daniel nodded quickly in response, his nervousness impacting all his movements. He could feel his muscles shorten as his pulse sped up. Everyone had heard the stories of ICE agents, and everyone had seen the news. He knew the things that could go wrong.
“Sorry,’ he said, ‘We’ve just... our car…it died,’ he said. ‘We’re simply trying to get a tow-truck.’
Jake’s jaw stayed clenched behind his mask and his eyes flicked past the father, to the mother, and the child on the curb. The family seemed too frightened to be innocent. Even the little girl looked nervous, as if she knew her family shouldn’t really be there. Jake wondered if they could be armed.
“How long have you been here like this?” he asked, as he looked towards the car stopped at an angle. The way it cut the street like a mistake.
“Not long. We only just broke down. Perhaps five minutes at the most.” Daniel tried to reassure the men.
Sophia stood beside her husband. She was suddenly afraid to speak, concerned her words would be twisted. Armed and aimed like dangerous weapons back towards her. Her phone was still clutched in her hand, but the screen was now just darkness.
The two men either side of Jake spread themselves out very slightly. Just enough so that the line became a shallow arc. A breathing, armed, containment. Sophia stared hard at her daughter, willing her to say nothing and do nothing.
Luna stood still. She didn’t know who all the men could be, but she knew that something wasn’t right. She pressed her thumb into the marble that had warmed inside her palm and felt it’s smooth and glossy surface. In the hollow of that moment, she longed to touch her mother’s skin and hide behind the broad shape of her father.
“Sir,” Jake suddenly said. “I’m going to need you to step away from the vehicle.”
Daniel slowly blinked.
“Of course. Yes. Sure,” Jake finally said, taking a step backwards, his hands lifting instinctively as if to show that they were empty. “We’re just trying to move the car.”
“Step further back.”
Daniel moved again and Sophia finally spoke.
“Is there a problem here?” she asked, her voice far louder than intended.
But the Agent didn’t answer her. His gaze stayed fixed on Daniel. Unwavering. Unblinking. His pupils like black holes in space.
“Identification,” Jake said instead.
Daniel swallowed and he could feel his larynx pulling forwards, his Adam’s apple sliding up and down his throat.
“Yes. It’s in my jacket. Here,” he said.
“No sudden movements,” Jake replied.
“I won’t. I’ll just…I’ll reach…slowly…”
Daniel began to move his hand towards his pocket, but before his fingers reached the softness of the cloth, Jake shouted “Stop,” and Daniel froze.
Jake took another step forwards. The men were now so close that Daniel could see the sharpened details of Jake’s face. Red veins splintered his eyeballs and pricks of sweat punctured his forehead.
“Which pocket? Left, or right?” Jake asked, his voice too taut.
Somewhere in the distance a police siren pulsed faintly, and Sophia prayed.
“Right. My right pocket. My wallet’s there.” Daniel’s voice was sounding desperate.
And that is when it happened.
When Sophia dropped the marble.
One second it was in her palm. The next, it tipped and rolled across the dampness of her fingers. It made a small, clean sound as it hit the icy asphalt. Like the snapping of a power line. Like a dart striking dead centre.
Adrenalin shot through Jake’s veins.
“Turn around,” Jake loudly yelled, and Daniel hesitated for a moment.
Sophia felt the change in things. The smallest fracture in the moment, like a crack in ice before it splits.
“Turn around,” Jake said again.
The marble rolled.
Daniel slowly turned himself around to face the grey Sedan. His shoulders tight, his breath shallow.
The marble carried on rolling and Luna watched it gain momentum as it crossed the street.
“Hands where I can see them.”
Daniel raised his hands, and his world seemed to narrow. Sound drained away. Even the cold felt somehow distant, as if disconnected from this time and place.
As the marble rolled, the gold inside twisted and spun and caught the light. It slowed and slowed and finally stopped.
“My marble!” Luna gasped.
And she took a step into the street.
Daniel turned towards his daughter. His movement was a simple primal reflex. A paternal instinct embedded in his very core.
“Luna…” he said, as his body lunged towards her.
As Daniel moved, Jake’s world snapped.
Jake’s training overrode his thoughts. The sudden shift in posture, the decisive turn. The hands no longer clearly visible. Everything became a threat. It wasn’t even a decision. It was a reflex sharpened over months. An instinctive line drawn so tight that it left no space for thought, no time for doubt.
“Don’t!” Sophia screamed.
But Jake’s arm was already moving upwards, with the gun pointed towards them.
And then a crack that split the air.
It was louder than it should have been.
The sound of an entire world tearing.
Daniel’s body jerked and for a moment, he stayed upright. He seemed to pause mid-motion, as if the world had caught him, held him in place.
Then gravity remembered him.
As his body hit the ground the sound was thick and dull, and a scream tore from Sophia.
“Daniel!”
She ran towards her husband, dropped down to her knees, her hands already searching, pressing anything and everything, not knowing where or what to hold. How to undo the last few moments.
“No.... no… no… no….”
Her voice fractured.
Blood spread against the pale ground, bloomed like flowers on the asphalt.
Luna stood beside her marble.
It had come to rest a few feet from her father’s outstretched hand.
She didn’t move.
Her father didn’t move.
The Agent lowered his weapon, but far too late. Jake’s breath came hard, uneven now. Adrenaline surged through him as he realised what he’d done.
“I…” he started saying.
But there was nothing more to follow it. No words for him to possibly say.
The other men moved quickly in. One reached towards Sophia and tried to pull her body backwards.
“Ma’am, you need to…”
“Don’t touch me! NO!” Sophia screamed.
Her hands were slick and trembling as they pressed against her husband’s chest, trying to anchor him to life, with her own weight.
“Stay with me,” she pleaded, her voice collapsing inwards.
His eyes were wide and open.
But he was already somewhere far away.
Luna crouched down low. The cold no longer registered. Everything had narrowed to a single point.
Her marble and her father.
Both of them were on the ground and neither of them moving.
Luna reached towards the marble first and picked it up. It was colder now. The warmth of her own hand had leached from the glass, but the gold inside still twisted. It still caught the light, refracted it and contained something that looked like life.
She closed her fingers tight around the marble and then took a step towards her father.
“Stay there,” Sophia hoarsely said.
But Luna knelt down anyway. She moved her body carefully, as if the ground itself might shatter, like her world had shattered around her.
And she opened up her tiny fist.
Then, very, very gently, she placed the marble near her father.
As if returning it, giving it back.
Nobody spoke.
Nobody moved.
Jake watched and wished for his own mother as he watched the child’s tiny offering.
At the star caught in an orb of glass. At the magic trapped inside a moment.
And the hand resting beside it.
If you enjoy Charlotte’s writing, it may interest you to know she has written two books published by published by Simon & Schuster, Afterwards (published 2023) and One Little Lie, out in July 2026 and available to pre-order now.
Chilling but important read, thank you. Really brings it home