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Horatio cradles Hamlet in his arms, and he thinks about how he never got to do that before. How he never got to touch Hamlet. Because Hamlet was a prince and now, now that it's almost too late, he finally has him in his arms.
But when Hamlet begs him not to die, Horatio's heart breaks again, because he can't imagine what his life would look like without Hamlet in the background.
Because it was never supposed to end like this.
Except it was. Because morbid, macabre Hamlet always talked about his death, but Horatio could never believe it, never accept it.
After all of the death, Horatio couldn't stay in Denmark. He would try and travel as far as he could, to the end of the world.
On the run.
Because if Hamlet haunted him, it would break him.
So he falls into the beds of different men, all somehow named Antonio, so that he can forget their faces afterward.
When they eventually try to ask about his Hamlet, the name he weeps in the throes of passion, he's torn.
On one hand he's been spreading the story everywhere, but on the other, well, some things he still has to keep close to the chest.
Horatio stops in Venice around Yom Kippur and he aches to say Yizkor for his beloved, even though he knows it's wrong.
He finds a little shul that welcomes him in and an old widower who invites him to his house to break the fast.
"I usually eat my holiday meals with Tubal" explains the old man "but I decided to break my fast alone, I guess Hakadosh Baruch Hoo had other plans".
Horatio had been raised religious, he knew to say amen after the old man, Shylock, says kiddush, but he had not sat down for a holiday meal in many years.
He had hidden his lineage out of necessity in college, and he had never been able to get back into practice. After losing Hamlet he had simply not had the heart to believe in a God that cruel.
He makes quiet conversation with Shylock. The old man in the big empty house.
Shylock asks about his family and Horatio admits that he is an orphan, with nobody to care for him.
"Nonsense" says Shylock "our people care for each other".
"When I was at my lowest" the old widower says, "the whole community rallied to my side. Tubal bailed me out of prison, the rabbi and his wife came to visit me every shabbat, everyone helped in whatever way they could. The goyim had forced me to convert for my 'crime'-" he snarls out the word "but I continue to practice in secret, for it is as much a part of me as my very flesh".
Shylock turns his gaze to a painting on the wall which Horatio just notices. It is of a much younger version of Shylock with a lovely dark haired woman and an equally lovely little girl with her mother's pronounced nose sitting proudly on her face.
Horatio knows without asking that both of the women are gone.
Maybe this is what compels him to speak.
"I grew up in a small community in Denmark, but I haven't been back since my parents' deaths." He takes a breath. "It was an Easter massacre."
"Afterwards, I took all of my inheritance and started a new life for myself at a university far away, because having to look upon the faces of the neighboring peasants who murdered without remorse made me sick". Horatio tasted bile at the back of his throat. He had never confessed that bone deep hatred before, but he could not deny how much better he felt without its weight on his shoulders.
"After...leaving court" Horatio continues, "I haven't been openly Jewish".
Shylock nods his understanding "My beloved daughter also thought she could outrun her Jewishness," he sighs as he says it, "but you can not run forever. I know that the Book of Fate has closed for the year, but I give you a blessing that one day you will be able to settle back into your birthright."
Horatio feels tears pool in his eyes, it had been so long since somebody had seen his hurt and offered unselfish comfort.
It was like having his parents back, like having his Sweet Prince back.
The tears finally slide down his cheeks.
Shylock says nothing, but holds out a handkerchief with a deep kindness in his eyes.
The next morning Shylock asked him over breakfast what his plans for Sukkot are.
Jessica could've dealt with Lorenzo cheating on her, but not him beating her when she found out,
So she escapes in the middle of the night, just like when she first ran away with him. The irony is not lost on her.
Horatio knows this woman, he's certain, but he can not quite place her.
He is on a too small ship to Morocco, and he blames the small quarters for how he is drawn to her.
She claims to be a poor widow, but there is a hesitancy in her voice that makes Horatio certain that her bruised eye is the real reason for her journey.
Before they separate on shore he slips her some money and wishes her luck and whispers a small prayer for her after she has disappeared into the crowd.
They meet on and off after that.
He learns her name, Jessica, and about her Christian husband (and the Jewishness he had suspected of her), and always offers her some tzeddakah.
She in turn learns about his parents and his prince and can only offer her condolences.
She can not offer her prayers.
A full year after their first meeting, Horatio asks Jessica to come with him to the house of an old widower for Pesach.
He leads her through the familiar watery streets of the city, not noticing her deft familiarity with the city that has finally offered him solace.
She is quiet as he leads her closer to the Jewish ghetto, but not inside it. To the edge of the ghetto, where stands a modest old house right on the border of the city proper.
Horatio knocks on the door, but Jessica already knows where she is.
Even in her stupor she could not call him Tatie, could not let the familiar mother tongue take over.
But she doesn't have time to overthink her reaction because Shylock, moving faster than any man his age has any right to, is hugging her. And suddenly the pain of these last two years hits her all at once. And she finds herself crying in her father's arms. He rocks her back and forth gently and whispers little Yiddish platitudes in her ear and strokes her mane of curls, now streaked in gray.
And Horatio looks between them in shock, still standing on the front stoop.
After a moment, or maybe hours, Shylock ushers them inside and sits them down.
"Horatio" he starts "how did you find her?" He phrases his question toward Horatio, but his gaze does not, can not, waver from Jessica.
"I- uh, it was an accident" Horatio confesses. "I hadn't known Jessica was your daughter until you opened the door".
Jessica laughs at the two mens' surprise, causing them to both look at her. "I think-" she starts "I think Hashem wanted me here".
And it feels right when she says it.
She has not thought of the God of her father for many years, but from her memories, He seemed the type to orchestrate whatever this was.
Shylock smiles that sad, enigmatic smile Horatio had begun to associate with him as he gently asked her how The Holy One brought her home.
Jessica had told Horatio the bare minimum, but she tells her father everything.
She tells him of the wrongness of their Christian wedding, and the agony of her wedding night. She tells him of the mistrust her husband harbored for her and her own suspicions that she tried her best to ignore. Then she tells her father about the night she ran for her life.
Afterwards she can not speak, so Horatio shares his story. His whole story.
And Shylock has been so kind to him, but Horatio feels a dread pool in his stomach as he tells the two the truth about his "friendship" with Hamlet and his many tryst afterwards.
But all Shylock says at the end of the story is that he is glad Horatio has found his way through.
And that he could do much better than any Antonio.
Jessica laughs at that. A joke he is not privy to, but is warmed by nonetheless.
Jessica and Shylock both apologize in their own ways.
Jessica is outright and proud. She tells her father that she was wrong to run away, that she had taken for granted the protection he had always given her and had let herself be turned against him.
But she also tells him that he had been more jailer than father and had failed to communicate with her.
Shylock's apology is a bit more stunted, but just as sincere. He apologizes for being emotionally distant from her after her mother's death, and for hiding her away in the name of protection.
But he also tells her that she was insolent and disobedient.
Just like him.
Three members of a strange and familiar, ancient and totally new family talk long into the night, until they all fall asleep where they sit.
All is well.