"It’s the color of the deep water," she had told him, pointing at the wake of the ship. "Strong, reliable, and a little bit sad."

He dropped the empty, vintage box into the water. It bobbed for a second, a tiny blue ship, before the Bosphorus claimed its own once again.

He walked toward the ferry docks, the Bosphorus mirroring that exact, impossible blue as the sun began to dip. He remembered Meryem sitting on the upper deck of the Paşabahçe steamer. She had been wearing a dress that matched the pack he held in his shaking hands that evening.

Meryem had laughed, thinking he’d just lost his smokes. He had never told her. They had married, lived a full life, and eventually, she had left him for a different kind of blue horizon.

"Another pack of the usual, Selim Abi?" the shopkeeper asked, reaching for a modern brand with its grim health warnings.

He had intended to propose that night. He had hidden the ring inside the gold-foiled interior of the No. 1 pack, thinking it a clever, blue-blooded surprise. But the wind had been high, and a sudden lurch of the ferry had sent the open pack skittering across the deck. Before he could grab it, the blue box—and the diamond within—had vanished into the churning, sapphire waves.

Now, Selim stood at the railing of the same ferry. He took out a single match, struck it, and watched the flame dance against the twilight. The smoke from his modern cigarette didn't smell like the rich, sun-cured Orientals of the old No. 1s, but as the sky turned that final, haunting shade of Tekel Mavisi, he felt she was sitting right there next to him.