Chapter 3 - THE MUSIC BOX THAT DISAPPEARED
“Why would my wife hide a photograph from my own uncle?”
Dante stood in his study, holding the picture so tightly that the paper bent beneath his fingers.
Sarah stood across from him.
She had returned from her apartment with Enzo less than an hour earlier.
Already, she regretted bringing the photograph into the house.
“I don't know,” she answered.
“Your grandmother never mentioned Isabella?”
“Not by name.”
“Never told you she knew my wife?”
“No.”
“Then why did she keep this?”
Sarah looked directly at him.
“Maybe because she was afraid someone would take it.”
Dante's jaw tightened.
He was accustomed to people lowering their eyes when he became angry.
Sarah didn't.
Not because she wasn't frightened.
Because she had spent years caring for her grandmother while landlords, employers, and hospital administrators spoke to her as though being poor meant being foolish.
She recognized that tone.
And she had learned not to surrender to it.
Enzo stepped between them.
“Boss, the note mentions a blue music box. We should find it.”
Dante turned toward the door.
“Mrs. Pike.”
Within minutes, the longtime house manager entered.
Evelyn Pike had worked for the Moretti family for eighteen years. She had helped prepare Isabella's wedding reception and had been present when both girls were brought home from the hospital.
She knew the household better than almost anyone.
“Did my daughters have a blue music box?” Dante asked.
Evelyn's expression changed.
“Yes, sir.”
“Where is it?”
She hesitated.
“It was removed after Mrs. Moretti died.”
“Who removed it?”
“Mr. Carlo arranged for several items to be taken from the nursery.”
Dante felt his stomach tighten.
“What items?”
“The music box. Some photographs. A rocking chair cushion. Mrs. Moretti's old cardigan.”
“Why?”
Evelyn clasped her hands.
“Your uncle said the children needed a fresh environment. The specialists were concerned about their distress.”
Sarah looked at her.
“Did the specialists specifically recommend removing those things?”
Evelyn glanced toward Dante.
“I never saw their written recommendations.”
Dante's voice hardened.
“Who approved the removal?”
Evelyn swallowed.
“You did, sir.”
The room went silent.
“I did?”
She nodded.
“You signed the household inventory authorization three weeks after the funeral.”
Dante remembered almost nothing from those weeks.
He remembered the cemetery.
He remembered the empty space beside him in bed.
He remembered sitting in his study while people placed papers before him and told him what needed to happen.
Carlo had handled everything.
The funeral.
The household.
The business.
Even the arrangements for the twins.
Dante had been grateful.
Now he wasn't certain what he had permitted.
“I want that inventory,” he said.
Twenty minutes later, Enzo returned with a three-page household record.
At the bottom of the final page was Dante's signature.
Above it were twelve items authorized for removal.
The blue music box was number seven.
Sarah studied the document.
“You signed this without knowing what was being taken?”
Dante didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
She looked toward the hallway, where the twins were playing with wooden blocks.
“Those girls lost their mother. Then someone took away the things that smelled like her.”
“I was trying to help them,” Dante said.
“I believe you.”
Her voice softened.
“But sometimes doing what somebody tells us is easier than noticing what a child needs.”
Dante looked at the inventory again.
For three years, he had blamed himself for failing to save Isabella.
Now he wondered whether he had also failed his daughters afterward.
That afternoon, Sarah sat with Mia and Bella in the nursery.
Bella arranged wooden animals along the carpet.
Mia drew circles on a sheet of paper.
Sarah noticed that the circles were surrounded by yellow lines.
“What are you drawing?” she asked.
“Lights,” Mia said.
“Lots of lights.”
Mia nodded.
“Too bright.”
Sarah glanced toward the ceiling fixtures.
“Do you like them?”
Mia shook her head.
“They make the window scary.”
Sarah remembered the reflections from the previous night.
She turned off the overhead lights and opened the curtains.
Soft afternoon sunlight filled the room.
Bella looked up.
“Better.”
Sarah smiled.
“Better.”
Then Mia reached beneath her pillow and pulled out a short piece of faded blue ribbon.
“Mommy's bird had this.”
Sarah knelt beside her.
“What bird?”
“The little blue box,” Bella answered. “Mrs. Pike showed us a picture.”
Sarah's heart tightened.
The girls couldn't have remembered their mother using the box when they were infants. But someone had told them enough for the object to become part of their understanding of her.
Sarah took the ribbon.
A tiny silver bell was attached to one end.
She recognized the stitching.
Her grandmother had sewn that same distinctive cross-shaped stitch into every blanket she repaired.
That evening, Enzo finally traced the music box.
It had not been sold.
It had not been donated.
According to the removal record, it had been transferred into the private possession of Carlo Moretti.
Dante stared at the entry.
Then he noticed the handwritten instruction beneath it.
Do not return to nursery under any circumstances.
Beside those words was another signature.
Not Dante's.
Carlo's.
May you like
And underneath, in smaller writing:
Remove the photograph before the children see it.
