Chapter 4 - BOX 214
By nine the next morning, Dominic had canceled three meetings.
By nine-ten, Camille had moved out of the master bedroom suite she had begun using on weekends.
She packed two suitcases herself.
No maid helped her.
Evelyn noticed that.
Maybe Camille wanted dignity.
Maybe she simply didn’t trust anyone near her belongings anymore.
Dominic met her in the upstairs hall.
“You don’t have to leave tonight.”
Camille zipped the second suitcase.
“I think we both know I do.”
“I said I haven’t decided anything about us.”
“That’s worse.”
Dominic studied her.
Camille’s eyes were red.
For the first time since Evelyn had known her, she looked less like a perfect future Mrs. Moretti and more like a frightened forty-year-old woman who had gambled too much on controlling an outcome.
“You knew about Box 214?” Dominic asked.
“No.”
“My mother?”
“I knew there had been a child.”
“Anna.”
Camille flinched.
“Yes. Anna.”
“How long?”
“Six months.”
Dominic stared.
Six months.
During that time Camille had chosen wedding flowers.
Ordered invitations.
Removed Elena’s photographs.
Fired Walter.
“You had six months to tell me.”
“I had six months to watch my mother wake up at three in the morning because she believed one mistake from 1998 was going to destroy everything.”
“One mistake?”
“She helped hide a baby.”
“She obeyed my parents during a threat against that baby.”
“That isn’t what she’s ashamed of.”
Dominic waited.
Camille’s mouth tightened.
“There’s something my mother still hasn’t told you.”
“Then tell me.”
“I don’t know exactly what it is.”
He didn’t believe her completely.
She saw that.
“I found the photograph in her cedar chest in April,” Camille said. “The original. Before the face was torn.”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
“You tore it?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“My mother.”
“Why?”
“I asked who the baby was.”
“What baby?”
Camille stared at him.
“There was a stroller beside your mother.”
Dominic went still.
The photograph from the box showed only Elena and the faceless woman.
The right edge had been torn away too.
A missing section.
“What happened to that piece?”
“My mother burned it.”
Dominic’s jaw clenched.
Camille lifted one hand.
“I know how that sounds.”
“It sounds like someone has spent twenty-seven years destroying pieces of my family.”
“I was scared.”
“You weren’t even involved in 1998.”
“No. But I’m involved now.”
She looked down.
“If Anna is who she says she is, then my mother lied to a Moretti for almost three decades.”
“This isn’t about my last name.”
“It always is.”
Dominic said nothing.
Camille picked up her suitcase.
“Ask your accountant about Box 214.”
He frowned.
“Why?”
“My mother whispered something last night after we left the library.”
“What?”
Camille looked at him.
“She said Anthony never trusted paper.”
Then she walked away.
An hour later, Dominic, Anna, Evelyn and Walter gathered in his study.
Margaret had refused to come downstairs.
She said she needed time.
Dominic gave her one hour.
Anna stood before a framed photograph of Elena.
“She looks different there.”
Dominic followed her gaze.
“That was taken at my high-school graduation.”
“You were fourteen in 1998?”
“Yes.”
“I kept trying to calculate it last night.”
He gave the smallest smile.
“I did too.”
Anna looked at him.
“Did she laugh loudly?”
Dominic’s expression changed.
“Yes.”
Anna nodded slowly.
“Rose said I laugh like Elena.”
“That’s probably true.”
It was the first ordinary thing they had said to each other.
For a few seconds, they were not solving a twenty-seven-year-old deception.
They were two people trying to understand how they were related.
Walter entered carrying a weathered garden ledger.
“I remembered something.”
He opened it carefully.
Elena’s planting records filled the pages.
Dates.
Tree species.
Locations.
Notes about soil.
Walter turned to June 1998.
There it was.
Rose garden — E.M. — 214
Below it Elena had written:
For the child who must always know where home is.
Anna sat down.
Dominic read it twice.
Walter’s voice broke.
“I thought she meant you.”
Dominic looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because you were always disappearing into that garden when your parents argued.”
Dominic almost smiled.
“That sounds like me.”
Walter turned another page.
A small rectangle had been taped inside.
A bank deposit receipt.
No dollar amount.
Only an institution name and box number.
Philadelphia Commonwealth Trust — Safe Deposit 214.
Dominic called the institution.
It had merged twice since 1998.
Records existed, but access required verification of the original renter.
Name:
Elena Moretti.
Joint authorized holder:
Margaret Prescott.
Dominic hung up.
Anna looked toward the ceiling.
“Margaret.”
“Yes.”
Walter frowned.
“So she can open it.”
“If the authorization survived the merger.”
Evelyn had been studying Elena’s ledger.
“Dominic.”
He turned.
She pointed to another entry.
September 16, 1998.
Two days after Anna was born.
M.P. received key. A.M. received duplicate.
Anna frowned.
“M.P. is Margaret.”
Dominic nodded.
Walter looked troubled.
“A.M. could be Anthony Moretti.”
“No,” Evelyn said.
They looked at her.
She turned the ledger around.
“Elena always identified family by first initial and surname.”
She showed earlier entries.
A. MORETTI — oak approval.
D. MORETTI — tomatoes.
“If she meant Anthony, she would have written A. Moretti.”
Dominic stared at the initials.
A.M.
Anna whispered, “Then who is A.M.?”
Walter suddenly looked toward the old photograph.
Dominic noticed.
“What?”
Walter shook his head.
“I’m remembering something.”
“What?”
“A woman who used to visit your mother.”
Margaret appeared in the doorway.
Nobody had heard her enter.
She was wearing yesterday’s clothes beneath one of the guest robes.
Her face looked twenty years older.
“Don’t, Walter.”
He looked at her.
“You remember her too.”
Dominic stepped forward.
“Who?”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Walter answered.
“Amelia March.”
Anna’s breath caught.
“That was Rose’s maiden name.”
Margaret looked at her.
“No.”
Anna frowned.
“My mother was Rose Amelia March before she married David Ellis.”
“No,” Margaret repeated.
This time there was fear in it.
“Amelia March wasn’t Rose.”
Dominic’s patience vanished.
“Then who was she?”
Margaret sat down.
“My mother.”
Camille’s grandmother.
Anna’s adoptive aunt’s mother.
Dominic stared.
Margaret continued.
“She created the original arrangement with Elena. Not me.”
Walter looked stunned.
“You told me Amelia was your aunt.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
Margaret looked toward Anna.
“Because my mother believed children should stay where fate put them.”
Anna’s face hardened.
“I wasn’t put anywhere by fate.”
“No.”
Margaret’s eyes filled.
“You were put there by frightened adults.”
Dominic tapped the ledger.
“What’s in Box 214?”
Margaret finally answered.
“Things Elena wanted Anna to have if she couldn’t bring her home.”
“Then we’re opening it.”
Margaret shook her head.
“You need to know something first.”
Dominic waited.
Margaret’s voice became unsteady.
“Anthony opened that box once after Elena died.”
Walter stared at her.
“How do you know?”
“Because I was with him.”
“What did he take?”
Margaret looked at Anna.
“A letter.”
“To whom?”
“Dominic.”
Dominic’s face went cold.
“My father took a letter my mother wrote to me?”
“Yes.”
“What did it say?”
“I never read it.”
“Then why take it?”
Margaret looked at the family portrait behind his desk.
“Because Anthony said if you ever saw it, you would never forgive him.”
Anna whispered, “For hiding me?”
Margaret shook her head.
“No.”
She looked directly at Dominic.
May you like
“For what he did after Elena died.”
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