Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO REMEMBERED TOO MUCH
“Tea time.”
Nora Hayes tucked the woven blanket around Camila Russo’s knees and reached for the porcelain teapot.
Then Camila grabbed her wrist.
The elderly woman’s laughter vanished so suddenly that Nora thought she was in pain.
“Don’t give him the blue one,” Camila whispered.
Nora glanced at the two teacups on the silver tray.
One was ivory.
The other had a delicate blue border.
“Give who the blue one, sweetheart?”
Camila’s trembling fingers tightened.
“Thomas. He gets sick when he drinks from the blue one.”
Vincent Russo stood motionless in the doorway.
For twenty years, his mother had been slipping in and out of memories that no longer belonged to the present. Sometimes she mistook him for his father. Sometimes she forgot that Thomas had been dead for a decade.
But Vincent had never heard her speak about a blue teacup.
Nora gently turned Camila’s hand over.
“Then we won’t use it,” she said. “How about the pretty white one?”
Camila relaxed.
“That’s a good girl.”
Vincent stepped inside.
His mother looked up and smiled.
“Thomas, you’re home early.”
The familiar mistake struck him harder than he expected.
“Just checking on you, Ma.”
Nora caught the change in his expression. She had learned something about Vincent Russo during the past three weeks.
The man who could silence a ballroom full of criminals with one glance became painfully quiet whenever his mother confused him with her dead husband.
Camila reached for the teapot.
Nora stopped her gently.
“Careful. It’s hot.”
“I know how to pour tea, young lady.”
“Of course you do. But I’m getting paid to be annoying.”
Camila laughed again.
Vincent almost smiled.
Almost.
Then he noticed the small leather notebook beside Nora’s chair.
“What’s that?”
“My notes.”
“About my mother?”
“Mostly.”
He picked it up.
Nora immediately extended her hand.
“Those are private.”
Vincent looked at her.
“You work in my house.”
“And she’s still entitled to privacy.”
For a moment, the room became very still.
Then Vincent handed the notebook back.
Nora appeared surprised.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
“I'll try to contain my rebellious tendencies.”
Camila chuckled.
But Vincent was no longer watching Nora.
He was looking at the blue-bordered teacup.
It belonged to a matching set his father had purchased years before his death.
And there was something else.
A faint memory.
His father refusing tea one evening.
Camila arguing with him.
A cup breaking against the fireplace.
Vincent pushed the thought aside.
“Paulie needs me downstairs.”
Nora nodded.
“Your mother has a good afternoon ahead of her. We’re going to finish our tea, listen to music, and maybe take a short walk if she feels up to it.”
“Fine.”
He turned toward the door.
“Mr. Russo?”
Vincent stopped.
Nora hesitated.
“Has she always been afraid of rain?”
He frowned.
“What?”
“Whenever there's a storm, she gets upset. She checks the windows and asks whether the gates are locked.”
“She’s confused.”
“I understand that.”
“Then what are you asking?”
Nora looked toward Camila, who was carefully arranging sugar cubes on a saucer.
“Yesterday she told me somebody came through the garden during a storm. She said Thomas told her not to look.”
Vincent felt something tighten in his chest.
His father had died on a rainy October night.
A heart attack, according to the family physician.
He had collapsed in his private study shortly after midnight.
Vincent had been thirty-two.
He remembered the rain.
He remembered the ambulance.
And he remembered his mother standing in the hallway, repeatedly asking why Thomas wouldn’t answer her.
“People with memory problems connect things that never happened,” Vincent said.
Nora studied his face.
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“Sometimes they remember something real.”
Vincent said nothing.
Nora lowered her voice.
“I’m not trying to upset you. I just think it might help to understand what frightens her.”
“Your job is to keep her comfortable.”
“And that’s what I’m doing.”
He left without another word.
But the blue teacup followed him all the way downstairs.
At seven that evening, Nora was preparing to leave when she discovered that someone had been inside Camila’s bedroom.
The room was spotless.
Too spotless.
The photographs Nora had arranged on the dresser were gone.
The little music box Camila enjoyed winding had disappeared.
And the old silver hairbrush she kept beneath her pillow was missing.
Nora checked the bathroom.
Nothing.
She checked the sitting room.
Then she found a housekeeper folding towels in the hallway.
“Did somebody clean Mrs. Russo’s room?”
The woman avoided her eyes.
“Orders.”
“Whose?”
“Mr. Moretti.”
Nora frowned.
She knew Paulie Moretti was Vincent’s underboss. He handled household security, staff assignments, and enough other matters that people lowered their voices when he walked by.
“Why would Paulie remove her personal things?”
The housekeeper looked uncomfortable.
“I don’t ask questions.”
“Well, I do.”
“That might be your problem.”
Before Nora could respond, the woman hurried away.
Nora returned to Camila’s bedroom.
The elderly woman sat on the edge of her bed, holding her blanket.
“Where’s my husband’s picture?”
Nora crouched beside her.
“I’m going to find it.”
“They took him away.”
“No one took him away, Camila.”
The old woman's eyes filled.
“They always take him away when I start remembering.”
Nora froze.
“Remembering what?”
Camila looked toward the door.
Then she whispered, “The woman in the red dress.”
Nora felt a chill.
Beatrice Gallow had worn a scarlet gown the night of the party.
“Camila, what woman?”
But Camila suddenly pressed a finger against her lips.
“Shh.”
Her gaze fixed on the hallway.
“Walls have ears in this house.”
Nora found Paulie in the downstairs office shortly before eight.
He was examining security reports behind a polished walnut desk.
“Mrs. Russo’s photographs are missing.”
Paulie did not look up.
“Good evening to you too.”
“Her hairbrush. Her music box. Things that comfort her.”
“Old clutter.”
“They’re not clutter to her.”
Paulie sighed.
“Nora, you’re doing good work. Vincent appreciates it. But there are decisions around here that don’t concern you.”
“Who decided her memories were clutter?”
That made him look up.
His expression hardened.
“You need to understand something. The Russo family has enemies. People use sentiment to get close. My job is to make sure that doesn't happen.”
“By taking an old woman’s photographs?”
“By keeping this house safe.”
Nora studied him.
For the first time, she noticed how tired he looked.
Not merely overworked.
Worried.
“Does Vincent know?”
Paulie closed the folder.
“Go home, Nora.”
She did not move.
He softened his tone.
“You have a decent job here. Better than you had a month ago. Don’t throw it away because you think every unanswered question is your responsibility.”
Nora thought about her rent.
Her overdue electricity bill.
The diner shift she had finally been able to quit.
For a moment, she considered apologizing.
Instead, she said, “I promised her I’d find the photograph.”
Then she turned and left.
At nine-thirty, Vincent entered his mother’s room.
Camila was asleep.
Nora had stayed late.
He found her sitting in the armchair, carefully repairing a torn photograph with archival tape.
“Your shift ended an hour ago.”
“I know.”
“What happened?”
“Somebody removed her belongings.”
Vincent looked at the photograph.
It showed Thomas Russo standing beside a much younger Camila in a sunlit garden.
Thomas wore a dark overcoat.
Camila wore a pearl necklace.
And beside them stood another woman, partially hidden behind a rosebush.
Vincent held out his hand.
Nora gave him the picture.
“Where did you find this?”
“Behind the dresser. It must have slipped down.”
Vincent stared at the woman in the background.
He knew that face.
Beatrice Gallow.
Twenty years younger.
And standing much closer to Thomas than he remembered.
On the back of the photograph, in his mother’s handwriting, were five words.
The day Thomas chose her.
Vincent read them twice.
Nora watched the color drain from his face.
“Mr. Russo?”
He turned the photograph over.
His voice was barely audible.
“My father told me he’d never met Beatrice Gallow before the year he died.”
Nora looked at the picture again.
“Then why was she in your family garden?”
Vincent did not answer.
Because something else had caught his attention.
A tiny handwritten date in the bottom corner.
October 14.
Ten years before Thomas Russo’s death.
May you like
And beneath it, almost hidden by the damaged edge, was a second sentence.
Vincent must never know what happened to the baby.
