Chapter 2 – The Name at the Window

“Celia Romano.”

I said the name so quietly that Luca leaned forward.

“What?”

“The woman in that bedroom screamed Celia Romano’s name when she heard Bianca outside.”

Bianca closed her eyes.

For the first time all evening, she seemed to forget that thirty-eight people were watching her.

Luca looked at his fiancée.

“Your mother?”

Bianca nodded.

“My mother used to help care for your mother. Years ago.”

“After my mother died?”

Bianca didn’t answer.

Margaret began crying.

And that frightened me more than anything Bianca had said.

Because Margaret was the kind of woman who apologized when someone else spilled coffee on her.

I’d never seen her cry in front of strangers.

Luca pulled his chair closer.

“Margaret, look at me.”

She couldn’t.

He took her trembling hands.

“Is my mother alive?”

The question seemed to hurt him physically.

Margaret pressed her lips together.

Then she nodded.

“Yes, sweetheart.”

A chair scraped against the marble floor.

Someone gasped.

Luca didn’t move.

For several seconds, he simply stared at the woman who had tucked him into bed for twenty years.

Then he released her hands.

“My mother is alive?”

“Yes.”

“And you knew?”

Margaret covered her mouth.

Luca stood so abruptly that his chair struck the wall behind him.

I expected anger.

Instead, he looked like a little boy who had just been told the worst day of his life had never happened.

He pressed one tattooed hand against his chest.

“I stood beside her grave.”

His voice broke.

“I was sixteen.”

Nobody answered.

“I spent twenty years believing I would never hear her voice again.”

Margaret whispered, “I know.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

Bianca stood.

“Luca, she isn’t telling you everything. Your mother’s condition is complicated.”

He turned toward her.

“You’ve seen her?”

Bianca hesitated.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Last Thursday.”

The same day she’d offered Margaret fifty thousand dollars.

I watched Luca make the connection.

“What did you want with that house?”

“My mother helped arrange the care. There were old arrangements that needed to be settled.”

“What arrangements?”

Bianca glanced toward the guests.

“Please. Not in front of everyone.”

Margaret lifted her head.

“You didn’t mind humiliating me in front of them.”

Bianca looked away.

Luca took a slow breath.

He was struggling to control his anger, but his eyes were wet.

“Everyone who came here tonight is free to leave,” he told the guests. “Nobody will be asked to repeat what you’ve heard. My family needs privacy now.”

People began collecting their coats.

Some offered sympathetic words.

Others avoided looking at him.

Within minutes, the enormous dining room was nearly empty.

Margaret, Bianca, and I remained.

Luca looked at me.

“Claire, tell me exactly what happened yesterday.”

I described the little house.

The faded yellow curtains.

The fresh white flowers.

The blue cardigan hanging beside the bedroom door.

And the bedroom locked from the hallway.

Margaret had gone into the kitchen to look for a small wooden box.

I’d heard someone moving behind the bedroom door.

When I asked whether she needed help, a woman answered.

Her voice was weak.

“Is Margaret there?”

I said yes.

Then she asked my name.

When I told her, she whispered, “Claire, please don’t tell Luca I’m alive.”

I hadn’t known what to say.

The woman had begun crying.

Then a car stopped outside.

I looked through the kitchen window.

Bianca was standing near the front gate, speaking to a man beside a silver sedan.

When Bianca raised her voice, the woman behind the bedroom door screamed one name.

“Celia!”

Twice.

Then came three sharp knocks against the inside of the door.

I reached for its handle.

It wouldn’t turn.

Margaret hurried back and begged me not to open it.

“She was frightened,” I told Luca. “I thought there was something wrong with her.”

Luca looked toward Margaret.

“Why was my mother locked inside a bedroom?”

Margaret wiped her cheeks.

“Your father said it was for her safety after she became ill. But I shouldn’t have allowed it.”

“Who takes care of her?”

“A nurse named Miriam. She comes every day and stays overnight most evenings.”

“And the rest of the time?”

Margaret hesitated.

“Celia’s family arranged the other caregivers.”

Bianca lowered her eyes.

Luca noticed.

“You knew my mother was locked in that room?”

“I knew she sometimes became frightened and confused,” Bianca said. “I didn’t understand how bad things had become.”

“You went there yesterday.”

“I was trying to stop something.”

“Then tell me what.”

Bianca shook her head.

“Not until I speak to my father.”

Luca stared at her.

“Your father doesn’t get to decide whether I see my mother.”

Bianca said nothing.

Margaret slowly reached into the folded apron on her lap.

“There’s something else.”

She slipped two fingers beneath a loose seam.

From inside, she removed a narrow plastic hospital bracelet.

The white plastic had yellowed with age.

Its lettering was faded.

But the name was unmistakable.

ELENA MORETTI.

Luca took it carefully.

His mother had worn that bracelet twenty years earlier.

I watched his expression change as he read the information printed beneath her name.

“Margaret.”

His voice was barely audible.

“Where did you find this?”

“In the house. Your mother kept it inside her sewing basket.”

Luca turned the bracelet toward the chandelier.

There was a date beside the words Discharged to Private Care.

August 18, 2006.

Luca stared at it.

Then he looked at Margaret.

“We buried my mother on August twelfth.”

His hand began trembling.

“This says she walked out of that hospital six days after her funeral.”