Chapter 2 - THE SIGNATURE THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN THERE
“Evelyn, the doctor who told me I couldn't have children wasn't just our family physician.”
Luca Varenna stood behind his enormous mahogany desk, holding a twelve-year-old medical folder.
“He was also my uncle's closest friend.”
I stared at him.
“Your uncle Matteo?”
Luca nodded.
The same Matteo Varenna who had congratulated me at our wedding.
The same man who had kissed my cheek and called me a welcome addition to the family.
The same man who had spent the past eleven weeks treating me with such careful politeness that I'd sometimes wondered whether he actually liked me.
“What does that have to do with your diagnosis?” I asked.
Luca opened the folder.
“Twelve years ago, I was injured when a loading crane collapsed at our North Harbor shipping terminal. I was twenty-three. Three men were hurt. One of them never walked properly again.”
His voice changed.
“I spent seventeen days in the hospital. My pelvis was fractured, and for a while, nobody knew whether I would recover.”
I stepped closer.
“When did they tell you about the infertility?”
“Five days after the accident.”
He turned a page.
“Dr. Mercer Hale said the damage was permanent. No further treatment. No possibility of children.”
“And you never got another opinion?”
Luca looked away.
“My father was terrified I wouldn't survive. My uncle said the family had already consulted the best specialists in Massachusetts.”
He swallowed.
“I believed them.”
Something about those words hurt me more than I expected.
This powerful man, feared by people twice his age, had once been a frightened young patient who trusted his family.
“Can I see the report?” I asked.
He handed it over.
The paper had yellowed around the edges.
At the top was the name of a private medical center.
Below it, a short diagnosis.
Permanent infertility resulting from traumatic injury.
But as I studied the document, something bothered me.
“Luca, where are the test results?”
He frowned.
“What?”
“The actual fertility testing. Laboratory reports. Follow-up examinations. There's nothing here except a physician's statement.”
His eyes narrowed.
I continued carefully.
“I'm not a doctor. But how could anyone know your fertility was permanently destroyed without proper testing?”
Luca said nothing.
Then he turned another page.
A printed instruction appeared near the bottom.
Further reproductive evaluation is not recommended.
Below it was a handwritten authorization.
Luca leaned forward.
His expression changed.
“What is it?” I whispered.
He pointed to the signature.
Antonio Varenna.
“That's my father.”
I looked at him.
“Your father approved this?”
“I never knew he signed anything.”
His father had died eight years earlier.
Luca rarely spoke about him.
But once, during a quiet dinner, he'd told me Antonio was the only man whose disappointment he had truly feared.
Now that man's signature was attached to the document that had stolen twelve years of hope from his son.
I reached for Luca's hand.
“Maybe there's an explanation.”
“There'd better be.”
He pulled open another drawer.
Inside lay an old silver wristwatch.
Its crystal was cracked.
The hands had stopped at 2:17.
“My father gave me this when I turned eighteen,” Luca said. “I was wearing it when the crane fell.”
He placed it beside the folder.
“After the accident, he had it repaired. But he asked the watchmaker to leave the hands where they'd stopped.”
“Why?”
“He said surviving something should never mean forgetting what happened.”
For a moment, his expression softened.
Then he looked back at the signature.
“And apparently, he expected me to forget something much bigger.”
“Luca, we don't know that.”
He closed his eyes.
“You're right.”
When he opened them, he looked directly at my stomach.
“Evelyn, have you seen a doctor?”
“Not yet. Just the home tests.”
“Then that's the first thing we do.”
His voice was steady again.
“Whatever happens with these records, you and the baby come first.”
My throat tightened.
“You believe me?”
He looked almost wounded.
“Do you really think I would accuse you of betraying me?”
“I was afraid.”
Luca crossed the distance between us.
He cupped my face.
“Evelyn, I've been lied to before. I won't make you pay for somebody else's dishonesty.”
I began crying.
He held me until I could breathe normally.
Then we examined the remaining pages together.
Near the back, I noticed something strange.
A second signature.
Not my father-in-law's.
Not Dr. Hale's.
It appeared beneath a paragraph labeled Family Representative Authorization.
The handwriting was sharp and unmistakable.
Matteo Varenna.
Next to it was a handwritten instruction:
All future inquiries concerning the patient's reproductive condition must be directed through the family representative.
Luca stared at the words.
Then he checked the date.
Suddenly, all the color disappeared from his face.
“That's impossible.”
“What?”
He pointed to the time beside Matteo's signature.
9:14 A.M.
“Evelyn, this says I was unconscious when they made this decision.”
I looked at him.
“Weren't you?”
Luca shook his head.
“No.”
His voice dropped.
“By nine that morning, I was awake. I was talking. I was asking to see my father.”
He looked at the folder again.
“And someone deliberately recorded that I couldn't speak for myself.”
May you like
Then he said something that made my skin turn cold.
“My uncle didn't just help the doctors make a decision, Evelyn. He made sure I wasn't allowed to question it.”
