Chapter 3 - THE DRAWING THAT REMEMBERED TWO BROTHERS
“We were both there.”
Luca said the words aloud.
He enlarged the photograph on his phone.
Two boys.
A clock.
A crooked yellow sun in the corner.
And the names Matteo and Luca written beneath two figures who appeared to be the same height.
“That drawing is impossible,” Vanessa whispered.
Luca turned sharply.
“Why?”
“Because your brother was younger than you.”
“Seven years younger?”
“That's what you told me.”
Luca stared at the drawing.
He had been eleven when Matteo disappeared.
Or so he believed.
But the child labeled Luca looked no older than the child labeled Matteo.
Claire noticed another detail.
“Mr. Moretti, may I see something?”
He handed her the phone.
She studied the drawing carefully.
The paper was yellowed, with a torn upper corner.
There was a small red mark near the bottom.
“That's a hospital stamp,” she said.
“How do you know?”
“My mother worked as a pediatric nurse before she became ill.”
Claire swallowed.
“She used to bring home paper from the hospital for children who didn't have coloring books.”
Luca examined the image.
Beneath the red mark were two faded letters.
S.A.
St. Agnes.
Owen looked at the picture.
“The drawing could have come from the hospital.”
“Or someone wants me to believe that,” Luca replied.
He turned toward Vanessa.
“Tell me everything your mother did at St. Agnes.”
Vanessa sank into a chair.
For several moments, she said nothing.
Then she looked at Luca.
“My mother was a private nurse.”
“For whom?”
“Your father.”
Luca stared.
“My father wasn't sick.”
“She wasn't treating him.”
The room became painfully quiet.
Vanessa pressed her fingers against her forehead.
“She was assigned to a child your father brought to the hospital.”
“Which child?”
“I don't know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I was six years old, Luca.”
Her voice cracked.
“I knew my mother disappeared for weeks. I knew she came home crying. And I knew she made me promise never to ask about the Moretti family.”
Luca hesitated.
Vanessa wiped her cheeks.
“When you proposed, she begged me not to accept.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I loved you.”
Luca looked away.
Vanessa continued.
“And because she said marrying you would wake up something that should stay buried.”
Evelyn began tapping the armrest of her wheelchair.
Three times.
Claire turned immediately.
“Mrs. Moretti?”
The elderly woman pointed toward Vanessa.
“Mother... alive?”
Vanessa froze.
Luca looked at her.
“You told me your mother died three years ago.”
“She did.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“Alive.”
Vanessa gripped the chair.
“Evelyn, please.”
“Alive,” the old woman repeated.
Luca stepped toward Vanessa.
“Where is she?”
Vanessa stood suddenly.
“I can't tell you.”
“Can't or won't?”
“Both.”
Owen moved closer to the door.
Luca raised a hand.
“Don't touch her.”
Vanessa looked at him with surprise.
He spoke quietly.
“I'm giving you one opportunity to tell me the truth without being afraid of what I'll do.”
She stared at him.
Then whispered, “My mother is in a private care facility outside Milwaukee.”
Luca's jaw tightened.
“You've been visiting her?”
“Every month.”
“And you told me she was dead.”
“She told me to.”
Evelyn covered her face.
A terrible sound escaped her throat.
Claire crouched beside her.
“Mrs. Moretti, did Vanessa's mother hurt you?”
Evelyn shook her head.
“Helped.”
Luca turned.
“Helped you do what?”
His mother struggled to speak.
“Save... him.”
“Matteo?”
She nodded.
“Then why didn't he come home?”
Her mouth trembled.
“Because... they wanted Luca.”
The room went still.
Luca felt the words settle over him.
“They wanted me?”
Evelyn reached for the silver watch.
She placed it against Luca's chest.
“Two boys,” she whispered.
“Mom, what are you trying to tell me?”
She pointed toward the photograph.
Then toward Luca.
“Wrong... name.”
Claire watched her carefully.
“Mrs. Moretti, did somebody change the children's names?”
Evelyn nodded.
Luca stepped backward.
It was such a small movement that nobody noticed except Claire.
He looked toward the family portrait hanging above his desk.
His father stood behind him.
His mother sat beside him.
And seven-year-old Matteo smiled in a navy sweater.
Luca remembered posing for that photograph.
At least he thought he did.
He remembered the photographer asking him to stand still.
He remembered his father adjusting his collar.
But the more he concentrated, the less certain he became.
His memories of that summer had always been fragmented.
He remembered a white ceiling.
A man's angry voice.
A woman crying.
And the strange smell of antiseptic.
Then nothing until the funeral.
“What happened to my memory?” he asked.
Nobody answered.
Claire quietly said, “A person can have gaps after severe trauma.”
Luca looked at her.
“Why would I forget my own brother?”
“I'm not saying you did.”
She paused.
“I'm saying someone may have encouraged you to remember things differently.”
For the first time, Luca looked frightened.
Not angry.
Frightened.
“Find the original family photographs,” he told Owen.
“Which ones?”
“Everything before August fourteenth.”
Owen left.
Vanessa sat silently.
Claire helped Evelyn drink water.
Then Luca noticed the old woman's rosary.
She had worn it every day since his childhood.
Its silver crucifix had an unusual blue stone set into the back.
As a boy, he'd often held it when frightened.
He remembered his mother saying it was a gift from his grandfather.
But now Evelyn removed it.
She placed it in Claire's palm.
“Blue,” she whispered.
Claire examined the cross.
“It's beautiful.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“Open.”
Luca moved closer.
Claire found a tiny seam along the silver edge.
The crucifix opened like a locket.
Inside was a narrow strip of folded paper.
Luca carefully unfolded it.
The ink was faded but readable.
If the boys are separated, follow the blue door.
Below it was a name.
MARIE BENNETT.
Claire's face drained of color.
Luca looked at her.
“Bennett?”
Claire stared at the paper.
“That's my mother's name.”
Vanessa slowly stood.
“No,” she whispered.
Claire took the paper.
“My mother is Marie Bennett.”
Luca's voice lowered.
“How old was she twenty-nine years ago?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Was she working at St. Agnes?”
Claire swallowed.
“Yes.”
Evelyn began crying.
Claire looked at her.
“Mrs. Moretti, did you know my mother?”
The old woman grabbed Claire's wrist.
“Marie... saved...”
Her voice failed.
Luca leaned forward.
“Saved whom?”
Evelyn pointed toward the drawing on the phone.
Then toward Claire.
Claire suddenly remembered something.
Her mother had kept a locked cedar box beneath her bed for as long as Claire could remember.
Inside were old photographs and a small child's blue sweater.
Marie had always said the sweater belonged to a boy she once cared for.
A boy who never came home.
Claire had never questioned her.
Now she felt sick.
“My mother kept a child's sweater,” she whispered.
Luca looked at her.
“What child?”
“I don't know.”
Evelyn squeezed Claire's hand harder.
Then she whispered:
“Marie... knows... the blue door.”
Before Luca could respond, Owen returned carrying a thick family album.
He opened it on the desk.
“Boss, I found something.”
The first photograph showed the Moretti family at a lakeside cottage.
Two boys stood beside Evelyn.
The older child was Luca.
The younger was Matteo.
But on the next page, taken only three months later, the older boy looked different.
His hairline.
His ears.
The shape of his jaw.
Owen placed both photographs side by side.
Luca stared at them.
Then he looked toward the mirror above the fireplace.
The older boy in the second photograph had his face.
The older boy in the first photograph did not.
Claire covered her mouth.
And Luca finally understood the question nobody had dared ask.
“If I'm the boy in the second picture,” he whispered, “then what happened to the Luca in the first?”
Evelyn reached toward him.
Her voice was broken.
“Blue... door.”
Luca looked at the drawing again.
Behind the two boys stood a small blue rectangle.
It wasn't a window.
It was a door.
And beneath it, almost hidden by the faded red hospital stamp, someone had written an address.
417 WEST MERCER STREET.
Claire recognized it immediately.
“That was my mother's first apartment.”
May you like
Then she looked at Luca.
“And it's where I was born.”
