Chapter 4 - WHAT MY MOTHER HID IN HER BLUE COAT
I left work twenty minutes later.
Not because Dante ordered me to.
Because my hands had started shaking too badly to carry plates.
Mr. Carrillo did not fire me.
He did something stranger.
He told me to take the weekend.
Then he refused to meet my eyes.
Dante offered me a car.
I refused.
He offered one of his guards.
I refused that too.
Then Leo began crying when I walked toward the employee exit.
I turned around.
He immediately stopped.
“That child is emotionally manipulative,” I muttered.
Dante’s mouth twitched.
“He’s a Rosselli.”
“Not helping.”
For one second, the night almost felt normal.
Then I remembered my mother had hidden my father’s identity for thirty-one years and disappeared days after meeting my newly discovered half-sister.
I went home alone.
Dante followed anyway.
Not beside me.
Half a block behind in a black car.
I noticed.
I pretended not to.
My apartment looked exactly as I had left it.
Second-floor walk-up.
Old hardwood floors.
A radiator that hissed even when turned off.
The same framed photograph of my mother and me at Revere Beach when I was twelve.
For eight months I had preserved her things because throwing them away felt like accepting something I refused to accept.
I opened her bedroom.
The smell hit first.
Lavender detergent.
My knees nearly gave out.
Dante’s voice came from the hall.
“Alina?”
I spun.
“You said you were staying downstairs.”
“I heard something fall.”
“A hanger.”
He stood outside the room.
He did not cross the doorway.
That mattered.
I hated that it mattered.
Leo slept against his shoulder.
Apparently the feared Dante Rosselli had decided body armor and a diaper bag belonged in the same outfit.
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Then start with what she took.”
I stared at him.
He nodded toward the closet.
“People leave clues in absence.”
I looked.
My mother had taken two pairs of shoes.
Her black handbag.
Three sweaters.
One suitcase.
I had noticed that months ago.
I had told police.
They called it evidence she left voluntarily.
But one thing suddenly bothered me.
“She left her winter coat.”
“What?”
I reached inside.
The navy wool coat from the photograph.
The one she had been wearing with Sofia.
I pulled it free.
Dante stepped into the room before catching himself.
“That’s it.”
“I know.”
“No. The photograph.”
His voice tightened.
“She wore that coat the day she met Sofia.”
I searched the pockets.
Tissue.
A grocery receipt.
Three peppermint candies turned sticky with age.
Nothing.
Then Leo woke.
He blinked at me.
I was starting to understand that serious stare.
It was the look of a tiny person who had not yet decided whether adults could be trusted.
“Hi,” I whispered.
He reached toward the coat.
“Of course.”
Dante shifted him away.
But Leo caught one brass button.
The thread stretched.
Then snapped.
The button hit the floor.
Something else hit with it.
Metal.
Small.
Silver.
Dante bent before I could.
The object fit inside his palm.
A broken piece of a dragon.
Not jewelry.
Too heavy.
One wing and part of a curled tail.
Dante’s face hardened.
“What is that?”
He did not answer.
“Dante.”
“It came from a car.”
I laughed once.
“That’s very specific.”
“My uncle has driven the same custom-built sedan for twenty-two years.”
He held up the broken silver piece.
“A dragon sits on each side of the hood.”
My mouth went dry.
“One has been missing since last winter.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Carlo complained for months that the replacement casting looked wrong.”
We stared at each other.
“Sofia died last winter,” I said.
“Yes.”
I checked the coat again.
Nothing in the pockets.
Then I noticed a line of stitching inside the hem.
Crooked.
My mother could sew beautifully.
She had repaired half my childhood clothes.
She would never have sewn a hem like that.
I grabbed scissors from the dresser.
Dante said, “Careful.”
“It’s my coat.”
“It’s your mother’s.”
“That’s worse.”
I cut three stitches.
A folded train ticket slid onto the floor.
South Station to Newburyport.
Dated the day after Sofia died.
I kept cutting.
A photograph appeared next.
Not hidden in an envelope.
Just folded twice.
Sofia stood in my mother’s kitchen.
My kitchen now.
I recognized the yellow cabinet I had been begging her to repaint for six years.
Sofia was holding Leo.
He could not have been more than a few weeks old.
My mother stood beside her with one hand over her mouth.
On the back she had written:
He has Lena’s eyes when he’s serious.
I sat on the bed.
Dante turned away.
His shoulders moved once.
I realized he was crying.
Silently.
The thought of Dante Rosselli crying should have seemed impossible.
Instead it made Sofia real.
Not a clue.
Not a dead woman tied to my mother’s disappearance.
A daughter.
A new mother.
A woman who had stood in my apartment holding her newborn son while my mother compared his eyes to mine.
“Why didn’t she tell me?” I whispered.
Dante wiped his face before turning back.
“Maybe she was afraid.”
“She was always afraid.”
“That was not the woman I knew.”
I looked up.
“Maybe you’re why she became that woman.”
The words landed.
He did not defend himself.
“I’ve wondered that for thirty-one years.”
I hated that answer too.
I searched the coat again.
Near the lining was something thin and hard.
A rosary.
Wooden beads worn smooth.
A small brass crucifix.
I knew it.
My mother used to wrap it around her hand during thunderstorms.
“This should have been in her purse.”
Dante stared at it.
“You recognize it?”
“Of course.”
He did too.
I saw it.
“My mother gave that to Marisol,” he said.
“Your mother again.”
“Yes.”
“Apparently she gave my mother half the family.”
“She tried to give her protection.”
“Did it work?”
“No.”
At least he knew better than to lie.
A tiny paper scrap had been folded around the cross.
One sentence.
If I cannot reach Lena, take this to Saint Anne’s and ask for Sister Catherine.
Dante read it over my shoulder.
“Do you know her?”
“No.”
“I do.”
I turned.
His expression worried me.
“How?”
“Sister Catherine Rosselli.”
I waited.
He continued.
“My aunt.”
“Carlo’s sister?”
“Yes.”
My blood went cold.
The photograph.
The dragon from Carlo’s car.
The rosary.
The ticket.
Every clue kept leading deeper into Dante’s family.
“Where is she?”
“A convent outside Newburyport.”
I looked at the train ticket.
Dante did too.
My mother had gone there the day after Sofia died.
Maybe.
Or intended to.
I folded the coat.
“I’m going tomorrow.”
“I’ll take you.”
“No.”
“Alina.”
“No guards. No caravan. No ten men checking church exits.”
“You found part of Carlo’s car hidden in your missing mother’s coat.”
“That is exactly why I don’t want your whole family knowing where I’m going.”
His expression tightened.
Then he nodded.
“Just me.”
“And Leo?”
“He stays with someone I trust.”
I looked at him.
“You still trust people?”
“Very few.”
The answer should have reassured me.
Instead, it made me think about Carlo.
Thirty-one years ago, Carlo had told Dante I was dead.
Eight months ago, Carlo had been watching my mother and Sofia.
And a piece of Carlo’s car had been hidden in my mother’s coat.
Dante picked up his phone, then stopped.
No call.
He seemed to reconsider who might be listening.
That frightened me more.
When we finally walked downstairs, his driver was waiting beside the car.
Dante opened the rear door.
Then froze.
“What?”
He stared at the empty infant seat.
The diaper bag was there.
Leo’s blanket was there.
But Leo was gone.
I heard Dante say one name.
Not loudly.
Not angrily.
May you like
Terrified.
“Carlo.”
