Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN WHO FOUND ME
Giovanni said nothing.
That was worse than shouting.
Celeste looked at him.
“I loved you.”
His face tightened.
“I know.”
“No. I don't think you do.”
She closed her fist around the ring.
“I loved you enough to build a life around everything you couldn't give me.”
I looked away.
This was too private.
Then Celeste said my name.
“Sophia.”
I met her eyes.
“I found you because I wanted to know whether I was marrying a man whose wife could walk back into his life.”
“Ex-wife.”
Her mouth twisted sadly.
“Emotionally?”
No answer.
She continued.
“I hired someone to locate you.”
Giovanni's eyes hardened.
“You investigated her?”
“Yes.”
“You had no right.”
“I know.”
That was becoming the sentence of the day.
“I went to your campus,” Celeste told me. “I saw you leaving class.”
I remembered that winter.
Lucia had been two.
I was exhausted all the time.
“I followed you one block.”
My anger rose.
“Stop saying it like that makes it better.”
“It doesn't.”
“Did you see Lucia?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Maybe thirty seconds.”
“And you knew.”
“I suspected immediately.”
Because of the eyes.
Everyone did.
Celeste wiped beneath one eye.
“You were carrying groceries. Lucia had fallen asleep against your shoulder. You looked tired.”
“I was.”
“You also looked peaceful.”
That word unsettled me.
“I thought telling Giovanni would destroy two households.”
Giovanni laughed without humor.
“So you decided ignorance was kindness.”
“Yes.”
He looked toward Salvatore's watch still in my hand.
“Apparently everybody learned from the same teacher.”
Celeste flinched.
Good.
Then I hated myself for being glad.
“Why tell us now?” I asked.
“Because I saw Giovanni with Lucia.”
Her voice softened.
“And I realized I had been protecting the wrong thing.”
Silence.
“The engagement is over,” Giovanni said.
Celeste nodded.
“I know.”
There was no screaming.
No thrown ring.
Just grief between two adults who had tried to build something on a foundation that had never belonged to both of them.
“What about Emilia?” I asked.
Celeste looked surprised.
“She isn't losing me.”
Giovanni spoke immediately.
“She will never lose you.”
That told me their relationship had been real.
Maybe not enough.
But real.
Celeste finally placed the ring on Giovanni's palm.
“Don't punish her for what I did.”
“I won't.”
“Don't punish yourself either.”
He almost smiled.
“That may be more difficult.”
She left.
I stood beside Giovanni in silence.
Then Marco appeared in the office doorway.
“You should both see something.”
I almost laughed.
“I am done seeing things.”
“No, you're not.”
He held an old envelope.
Not sealed.
Inside was a photograph.
He placed it on the desk.
“Where did you get this?” Giovanni asked.
“Isabella.”
My heart jumped.
“Isabella Bellini?”
Marco nodded.
“She came to see me last year.”
“Why?”
“She wanted to know if I still had contact with Sophia.”
I stared at him.
“You told her?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I had promised Teresa.”
Giovanni's patience snapped.
“My mother is dead.”
Marco looked at him.
“Promises don't die with people.”
Sometimes one sentence tells you everything about a man.
Marco slid the photograph toward me.
It had been taken through a car windshield.
The image was grainy.
A gas station.
Five years ago.
Me.
Standing beside the building with one hand covering my mouth.
In my other hand was the small pharmacy bag containing the pregnancy test.
My knees weakened.
“Who took this?”
“Someone working for Salvatore.”
Giovanni stared.
“He photographed her?”
“They documented everything.”
My stomach turned.
Marco pointed at the edge.
“Look.”
At first I saw nothing.
Then I noticed the reflection in the glass door.
A man.
Salt-and-pepper hair.
Much younger then.
Dark jacket.
Standing near the register.
My breath stopped.
I looked at Marco.
He did not look away.
“No.”
“Sophia—”
“No.”
The man in the photograph was him.
My manager.
The person who had hired me.
The person who had brought Lucia birthday cupcakes.
The person who had once covered three shifts when she had pneumonia.
The person I trusted enough to leave my apartment key with during an emergency.
“You.”
Marco nodded.
I stepped backward.
“You were there.”
“Yes.”
“Five years ago.”
“Yes.”
My voice cracked.
“You followed me?”
His eyes filled.
“I protected you.”
“Do not call it that.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“You stood ten feet away while I sat on a bathroom floor thinking I was completely alone.”
His face folded.
“I know.”
“You knew about Lucia before Giovanni did.”
Marco whispered, “Yes.”
Giovanni turned slowly toward him.
I had never seen his face so cold.
“You knew my daughter existed.”
Marco met his eyes.
“I knew Sophia was pregnant.”
“For five years?”
“For five years.”
Giovanni moved forward.
I caught his sleeve.
Not for Marco.
For Lucia.
For all of us.
“No.”
Giovanni stopped.
Marco reached into his pocket.
He took out a small wooden rosary.
My breath caught.
Teresa Reachi's rosary.
I had seen it in her hand every Christmas Eve.
“She gave me this before she died,” Marco said.
“Why?” Giovanni asked.
Marco placed it beside the photograph.
“She told me that one day Sophia would learn what we did.”
His voice broke.
“And she told me that when that happened, I was to tell her the part Salvatore never knew.”
The room became silent.
I stared at him.
“What part?”
Marco looked at Giovanni.
Then me.
“Salvatore didn't discover the threat against Sophia.”
Giovanni frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
May you like
Marco swallowed.
“He created it.”
