Chapter 4 - THE GIRL WITH HIS EYES
“I know.”
The words came out sharper than I intended.
Lucia immediately looked at me.
“Mama?”
I forced my face to soften.
“Everything's okay, baby.”
Giovanni remained crouched.
He did not touch her.
For that, I was grateful.
Lucia hugged her stuffed rabbit against her chest.
Giovanni nodded toward it.
“What's his name?”
“Her name is Pancake.”
“That's a good name.”
“She used to be Waffle.”
“Why did you change it?”
Lucia shrugged.
“I liked Pancake better.”
Giovanni smiled.
It was small.
Real.
I had forgotten how his whole face changed when he smiled without calculation.
Lucia apparently approved.
“You talk funny.”
I almost laughed.
Giovanni blinked.
“I do?”
“A little.”
“He does,” Celeste said.
Giovanni glanced at her.
“You're from Connecticut.”
“Exactly.”
Emilia came running over with pink frosting on her thumb.
“Lucia, do you want to color?”
Lucia looked at me.
“Can I?”
I should have said no.
Instead I said, “For five minutes.”
The two girls sat at a nearby table.
Mrs. Patel squeezed my arm.
“I can stay another half hour.”
“Thank you.”
Her eyes shifted toward Giovanni.
Questions would come later.
Celeste joined the children.
That left me and Giovanni standing beside the pastry counter like two people waiting for a train neither wanted to board.
He spoke first.
“I won't tell her.”
“What?”
“Who I am. Not until you agree.”
That surprised me.
“I expected a fight.”
“You'll get one.”
There he was.
“But not in front of her.”
I folded my arms.
Giovanni looked toward Lucia.
“She has your mouth.”
“She has your stubbornness.”
“You say that like you don't.”
Despite myself, my lips moved.
Almost a smile.
It vanished quickly.
“We need to talk about Marco.”
Giovanni's expression changed.
Marco stood near the kitchen door, looking as if he would rather climb into the oven.
“Marco,” Giovanni called.
My manager approached slowly.
“I haven't worked for your family in fourteen years.”
I stared.
“What?”
Giovanni answered without looking away from him.
“Marco drove for my mother.”
I felt suddenly cold.
“You told me you managed restaurants in Jersey.”
“I did.”
“Before that?”
Marco rubbed his forehead.
“I was young.”
Giovanni's voice hardened.
“You were thirty-two.”
“Everything looks young from here.”
“Marco.”
Marco looked at me.
There was genuine shame in his face.
“I left that life.”
“How did I end up working for you?”
Silence.
My stomach dropped.
“Marco.”
He shook his head.
“Not here.”
“Five years of my life have apparently been built on people saying not here.”
His face crumpled.
“Sophia, I never meant to hurt you.”
That frightened me more than anything else.
Giovanni stepped closer.
“Did my mother send you?”
Marco's head snapped up.
“No.”
Too fast.
Giovanni noticed.
“So somebody did.”
Marco looked toward Lucia.
“I promised.”
“To whom?”
Marco said nothing.
I wanted to shake him.
Instead Giovanni reached inside his jacket.
I stiffened instinctively.
He stopped.
Then slowly removed his wallet.
Not a weapon.
A folded piece of paper.
Old.
Creased almost white along the edges.
He placed it on the counter.
“What is that?”
“My reason for believing you wanted to disappear.”
I unfolded it.
A photocopy of a bus ticket.
Port Authority to Pittsburgh.
March 17.
Five years earlier.
My ticket.
I stared at him.
“How do you have this?”
“The original was found in an old expense file last month.”
“Whose file?”
Giovanni looked at Marco.
Marco closed his eyes.
My pulse began pounding.
I remembered that day.
Rain.
The dirty station floor.
A twenty-dollar coffee I could barely swallow.
A man in a dark coat buying a newspaper nearby.
I had thought he was nobody.
Giovanni tapped a handwritten number at the bottom of the receipt.
“That number belonged to a private account.”
My fingers went numb.
“Whose?”
Giovanni's answer came quietly.
“My uncle Salvatore's.”
I looked at Marco.
He wouldn't meet my eyes.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You knew something.”
“Sophia—”
“How did Salvatore know where I was going?”
Giovanni stared at the ticket.
“That is what I have been trying to understand.”
My mind raced backward.
The gas station where I bought the pregnancy test had been outside Harrisburg.
I had been frightened.
Alone.
No one had known my route.
At least I had believed no one knew.
A memory surfaced.
A silver watch.
The stranger near the station register.
He had reached around me to buy cigarettes for someone outside.
The watch had been old-fashioned, heavy, engraved with a tiny crest.
A Reachi crest.
I had seen one like it at family dinners.
My stomach turned.
“Giovanni.”
He looked at me.
“I wasn't alone.”
“What?”
“Someone followed me.”
Marco whispered something under his breath.
I turned.
“What did you say?”
He looked sick.
“I said Salvatore always used the same men.”
The room seemed to contract.
Giovanni's expression became terrifyingly still.
“You knew he followed her.”
“I knew later.”
“How much later?”
Marco did not answer.
Giovanni stepped toward him.
I grabbed Giovanni's arm before thinking.
The contact shocked us both.
His skin was warm beneath my fingers.
For one impossible second, we were husband and wife again.
I released him.
“Not here,” I whispered, glancing toward the girls.
Giovanni nodded.
Marco exhaled.
I held up the old ticket.
“What does Salvatore say?”
“I haven't asked him.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to know what you remembered before he knew I found you.”
I stared.
Found me.
Not ran into me.
“Did you come here looking for me?”
“No.”
His answer was immediate.
“The reservation was arranged by Celeste for Emilia's birthday tasting.”
Celeste called from the table.
“It's true.”
Giovanni continued.
“Seeing you today was chance.”
I almost laughed.
Five years of hiding.
And chance had won.
Giovanni glanced toward Lucia.
Then back at me.
“I am not asking you to trust me.”
“That is convenient.”
“I am asking you to let me find out who decided both of us were allowed to live with lies.”
Marco stared at the floor.
I knew then that the answer was standing closer than I wanted.
Giovanni took the ticket from my hand.
“There is one person who can explain why Salvatore paid for your escape.”
I whispered, “He didn't pay for it. I paid cash.”
Giovanni turned the paper over.
There was a second transaction number.
A refund.
Issued two days later.
To the same private account.
I stared at it.
Someone had replaced the money.
Someone had been tracking every step.
Giovanni's face hardened.
“We're going to see Salvatore.”
Marco finally looked up.
“You don't want to do that.”
Giovanni went still.
“Why?”
Marco swallowed.
Then he looked directly at me.
“Because Salvatore wasn't trying to find Sophia.”
May you like
A chill ran through me.
“He was making sure nobody else did.”
