Chapter 5 - THE THINGS A FATHER HID
Dominic stood beneath his father’s portrait for almost a full minute.
Then he took it off the wall.
Not violently.
He simply lifted the heavy frame from its hook and set it facedown against the bookcase.
Walter looked away.
Anna watched Dominic carefully.
“What did Anthony do after Elena died?” she asked.
Margaret rubbed her hands together.
“He went to Rhode Island.”
Anna’s eyes narrowed.
“To see me?”
“To see Rose.”
“When?”
“Six days after the funeral.”
Anna sat forward.
“What did he tell her?”
Margaret hesitated.
Dominic’s voice sharpened.
“No more protecting dead people.”
Margaret looked at him.
“Anthony told Rose that Elena had changed her mind before the accident.”
Anna’s face drained.
“He told her my mother didn’t want me?”
“Yes.”
Dominic swore quietly.
Margaret continued.
“He said bringing you into the Moretti family would endanger Dominic and reopen the feud.”
“But the feud was already ending,” Walter said.
“I know.”
“Anthony knew too.”
“Yes.”
Dominic stared at her.
“Why?”
Margaret’s answer was surprisingly simple.
“Fear.”
He laughed once.
“That excuse is doing a lot of work in this family.”
“I’m not excusing him.”
“It sounds like you are.”
“I’m explaining why intelligent people made cowardly decisions.”
Anna stood.
“Did Rose believe him?”
“At first.”
That answer hurt more than Anna expected.
She walked to the window.
“She spent my whole childhood telling me my birth mother loved me.”
“She discovered Anthony had lied.”
“When?”
“Years later.”
“How?”
Margaret looked toward Walter’s ledger.
“Because Elena kept sending things.”
Dominic frowned.
“She was dead.”
“Before she died.”
Margaret explained.
Elena had prepared birthday cards.
Not one or two.
Eighteen.
One for every birthday until Anna became an adult.
She had written them during the months Anna was hidden, terrified she might never get the chance later.
Rose kept them in a locked tin.
Anna turned slowly.
“I got birthday cards.”
Dominic looked at her.
“You said they stopped in 1999.”
“I thought they did.”
Her voice trembled.
“Rose gave me one card every year until I was eighteen. She told me they came from a family friend who had known my biological mother.”
Margaret covered her mouth.
“She followed Elena’s instructions.”
Anna began crying again.
“She never lied about Elena loving me.”
“No.”
Anna pressed both hands to her face.
Dominic finally crossed the room.
He stopped beside her.
Not touching.
Just there.
After a few seconds Anna leaned against his shoulder.
It lasted only a moment.
But it changed something.
When she stepped back, she wiped her eyes.
“I have the cards.”
“Where?”
“In my car.”
Dominic’s eyebrows rose.
“You brought everything?”
“I didn’t know what would matter.”
Evelyn volunteered to retrieve the box.
Camille was standing beside Anna’s car when Evelyn reached the drive.
Her suitcases were in the trunk of her Mercedes.
She held a small wooden box.
“You leaving?” Evelyn asked.
Camille gave her a tired look.
“You seem disappointed.”
“I haven’t decided how I feel.”
“That makes two of us.”
Camille looked toward the mansion.
“Dominic always admired people who told him the truth.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
Camille swallowed.
“Because knowing what someone admires isn’t the same as believing you can survive giving it to them.”
Evelyn considered that.
“What’s in the box?”
“Something my mother kept.”
“Does Dominic know?”
“No.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
Camille looked toward her luggage.
Then at the box.
Finally she handed it to Evelyn.
“You do it.”
Evelyn didn’t take it.
“That’s not my job.”
Camille almost smiled.
“You really are terrible at being a maid.”
“I’m good at my actual job.”
“Which apparently includes ruining engagements.”
“You did most of that yourself.”
Camille flinched.
Evelyn immediately regretted the cruelty.
“Sorry.”
“No.” Camille nodded. “I earned that.”
She pushed the wooden box toward her again.
“This contains the piece of the photograph my mother didn’t burn.”
Evelyn took it.
“You said she burned it.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because yesterday I was still trying to control what Dominic learned.”
“And today?”
Camille glanced toward the rose garden.
“Today I’m trying not to become the worst version of my mother.”
Back inside, Anna opened the box of birthday cards.
The first showed a yellow duck.
For my Anna, age one.
The second had balloons.
Then teddy bears.
Flowers.
By age twelve, the cards were simple.
Inside each, Elena had written only a few paragraphs.
Never dramatic.
Never self-pitying.
At sixteen:
If someone tells you being strong means never asking to be loved, they are wrong. Strong people ask. Strong people stay. Strong people forgive carefully.
Anna stared at it.
“I read this at sixteen after my first boyfriend broke my heart.”
Dominic smiled despite himself.
“She would have enjoyed knowing that.”
“You think?”
“She enjoyed everyone else’s problems.”
Walter laughed.
It was the first laughter in the house since the box had been opened.
Then Evelyn returned.
She gave Dominic Camille’s wooden box.
He opened it.
Inside was the missing section of the photograph.
A stroller.
A sleeping newborn.
And a fourteen-year-old boy standing ten feet behind Elena.
Dominic.
He stared at himself.
“I was there.”
Walter took the photo.
“Where was this?”
“Longwood Gardens,” Margaret whispered.
Dominic remembered the day.
His mother had told him the baby belonged to an old school friend.
He had stood beside the stroller.
He had even made the baby stop crying by jingling his car keys.
Anna looked at him.
“You met me.”
Dominic’s eyes filled.
“I met you.”
Anna laughed and cried at the same time.
“Apparently I didn’t like you.”
“No. You screamed for twenty minutes.”
“You remember?”
“Now I do.”
He turned the photograph over.
Something was written beneath the torn edge.
Four words.
Dominic already loves her.
The room became quiet.
Then Walter noticed another object in Camille’s box.
A brass key.
Stamped:
214
Margaret stared.
“I thought Anthony destroyed that.”
Camille had come in behind Evelyn.
She leaned against the doorway.
“He didn’t.”
Dominic looked at her.
“Where did you get it?”
“My mother’s cedar chest.”
Margaret shook her head.
“No. Mine is still upstairs.”
Camille frowned.
“This was beside the photograph.”
Margaret stood slowly.
“Then that isn’t my key.”
Dominic looked again at Elena’s ledger.
M.P. received key. A.M. received duplicate.
Margaret whispered:
“It’s Amelia’s.”
Camille stared at her mother.
“Grandmother’s key?”
“Yes.”
“But she died in 2007.”
Margaret’s expression changed.
“She did.”
Dominic closed his hand around the brass key.
“Then nobody has opened that box since?”
Margaret shook her head.
“Not with Amelia’s key.”
Dominic looked at Anna.
“We’re opening it today.”
Margaret’s face tightened.
“There’s one problem.”
“What?”
“Box 214 wasn’t held only for Elena’s belongings.”
Anna frowned.
“What else was there?”
Margaret looked at the old photograph.
“A recording.”
Dominic’s gaze sharpened.
“Of whom?”
“Your mother.”
“Doing what?”
Margaret swallowed.
May you like
“Telling you exactly why your father was never supposed to choose Anna’s future.”
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