Part 5: I wanted to be angry with Clara for not telling me.
Part 5: I wanted to be angry with Clara for not telling me.
But grief had taught me that anger toward the dead had nowhere to go. It circled inside the living until it found someone else to wound.
“She said my family valued bloodlines more than love,” I murmured.
“Was she wrong?”
The question was gentle.
I looked at Elena.
“No.”
She lowered her gaze.
“I am sorry I came without telling you.”
“Would you have told me eventually?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When I had something more than an old key and my mother’s fear.”
I thought of the necklace in her coat. The guards around her. My mother preparing to erase her as easily as Rosa had once been erased.
“You should leave the mansion for a few days,” I said.
Elena’s face closed.
“I understand.”
“With the girls.”
She looked up.
“My mother will not remain here,” I continued. “But until I know what else she is hiding, I want Lily and Sofia somewhere quiet. The lake house has staff and proper security.”
“You want me to go with them?”
“They will not go without you.”
For the first time that morning, something softened in Elena’s expression.
“And you?”
“I will join you after I understand what is in those letters.”
Sofia appeared in the doorway before Elena could answer.
She had abandoned her walker.
One hand held the doorframe.
Lily stood several steps behind her, watching with fierce concentration.
“Sofia,” Elena whispered.
The child released the frame.
She took one step into the library.
Then another.
Her knees trembled.
I crossed the distance but stopped before touching her.
Elena had known what I was only beginning to understand.
Helping Sofia did not mean catching her before she could fall.
Sometimes it meant believing she could reach you.
Sofia took a third step and held out her arms.
I knelt.
She fell against my chest.
I gathered her close, laughing once through a breath that felt dangerously like a sob.
“I walked to you,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Grandma was wrong.”
I looked over her shoulder.
My mother stood near the hidden doorway.
Tears moved silently down her face.
“Yes,” I said. “Grandma was wrong.”
My mother left the library without speaking.
By noon, arrangements had been made for her to stay at the family apartment in Milan.
She did not protest.
That frightened me more than anger would have.
Gabriel found me later in the old nursery, now the twins’ room.
Sunlight warmed the carpet where Sofia had taken her first steps. Lily sat near the window drawing a picture of four people holding hands.
I recognized the girls by their different-colored dresses.
The tall figure was me.
The fourth was Elena.
Gabriel leaned against the wardrobe.
“Vivienne found something.”
I looked toward the children.
“Not here.”
We stepped into the corridor.
He handed me a second photograph.
It showed my mother and Rosa standing beside a hospital bed. Both were very young. Rosa held newborn Clara.
On the back was a date and a line written in my grandfather’s hand.
The child must never know which family she belongs to.
Below it was a surname.
I read it twice.
It was not Moretti.
It was Laurentis—the same name as the couple who later adopted Clara.
“That makes no sense,” I said. “Why hide that her adoptive family was also her biological family?”
“Because that is not the important part.”
Gabriel turned the photograph toward the light.
In the lower corner, nearly hidden by the bedframe, was the edge of another hospital identification card.
Only part of the patient’s name could be seen.
Not Rosa Bellini.
Isabella Moretti.
I stared at it.
Behind us, the nursery door opened.
Elena stepped into the corridor.
She saw the photograph in my hand and stopped.
Gabriel’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“Adrian, I don’t think Rosa gave birth to Clara.”
My eyes moved toward the staircase where my mother had disappeared hours earlier.
Then to Elena, whose face carried Rosa’s features.
And finally to Sofia, standing inside the nursery without her walker.
A terrible possibility took shape.
Not terrible because of scandal.
Because of what it meant about every relationship on which our family had been built.
Before I could speak, my phone rang.
It was Marco.
“Sir,” he said, “your mother never reached Milan.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“Where is she?”
“We found the car near the old Laurentis estate.”
I looked again at the hospital card in the photograph.
Marco continued.
“There is something else. Mrs. Moretti left a message for you with the driver.”
“What message?”
His answer was quiet.
“She said you should ask Elena why Rosa kept two keys.”
I turned toward her.
May you like
Elena’s hand moved instinctively to the empty chain around her neck.
Then, from inside the stuffed rabbit Lily had carried all morning, came the faint sound of metal striking metal.
