Chapter 4 – The Promise Margaret Broke

“They take me away.”

Elena repeated the words with more urgency.

Luca looked toward Miriam.

“What is she talking about?”

Miriam’s expression tightened.

“I was going to discuss that with Margaret tomorrow morning.”

“Discuss what?”

“There’s a transfer scheduled.”

Elena shook her head.

Luca turned back to his mother.

“Where are they taking you?”

She struggled to answer.

“Far.”

Miriam stepped into the hallway and returned with a blue folder.

“The Romano care company arranged for Mrs. Moretti to be moved to a residential facility outside Rockford.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning. Nine o’clock.”

Luca looked at the clock.

It was almost midnight.

“Who approved this?”

“I was told a family representative had authorized it.”

“My mother has family. I’m standing right here.”

Miriam lowered the folder.

“I understand, Mr. Moretti. But until tonight, I didn’t know you believed your mother was dead.”

Luca walked to the bedroom window.

He stood there for a moment, breathing hard.

Then he returned to Elena.

“Mom, do you want to leave this house?”

She shook her head.

“Do you want to go to that facility?”

He nodded.

“Then we aren’t making that decision for you.”

Miriam seemed relieved.

“I can document her refusal and request an independent assessment first thing in the morning. Nobody should be moving her against her clearly expressed wishes.”

“Thank you,” Luca whispered.

Elena held his hand a little more tightly.

For the first time since we’d arrived, she relaxed against her pillows.

I helped Miriam prepare warm tea.

When I returned, Luca was looking at the photographs on his mother’s dresser.

There were dozens.

His eighth-grade graduation.

A high school baseball game.

His first restaurant opening.

A newspaper photograph of him receiving a community award.

His mother had followed his life from a little bedroom on Willow Street.

“Where did she get these?” Luca asked.

Margaret answered from the doorway.

“I brought some. Celia brought others.”

He stared at her.

“You were coming here?”

Margaret nodded.

“For years.”

“How often?”

“Usually once a month.”

He looked at the photographs again.

“And every time you went back to my house, you looked me in the eye.”

Margaret didn’t defend herself.

“Yes.”

Luca lowered his head.

“I don’t know what to do with that.”

“Neither do I,” she whispered.

Elena made a small sound.

She was reaching toward a picture beneath the lamp.

I handed it to her.

It was a child’s drawing.

Three people sat around a kitchen table.

One was a little boy with black hair.

The others were two women.

Above them, in uneven blue letters, someone had written:

OUR TABLE.

Luca stared at the drawing.

“I made that.”

Margaret smiled through tears.

“You were eight.”

He touched the smaller woman in the picture.

“That’s you, Margaret.”

“Yes.”

“And that’s Mom.”

Elena nodded.

Luca looked closer.

There was a fourth chair.

Empty.

He gave a faint, painful laugh.

“I remember. Mom asked why I didn’t draw Dad.”

Margaret wiped her eyes.

“What did you say?”

“Because he was always working.”

Elena pressed the drawing against her chest.

Luca knelt beside her again.

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

She touched his hair.

He shook his head.

“I should have asked more questions.”

Margaret stepped forward.

“You did ask, Luca.”

He turned.

“What?”

“You asked about her all the time after the funeral. For years.”

“Then why did everyone keep telling me the same story?”

“Because your father insisted it was true.”

Luca’s expression hardened.

Margaret looked at Elena.

“Please forgive me.”

Elena watched her for a long moment.

Then she extended her good hand.

Margaret took it.

But when Luca moved toward them, Elena suddenly looked away.

Her fingers tightened around Margaret’s wrist.

She said something neither of us understood.

Miriam came closer.

“Take your time, Elena.”

The older woman swallowed.

“Birthday.”

Luca frowned.

“Whose birthday?”

She pointed toward him.

“Twenty-one.”

Margaret closed her eyes.

And I knew she understood.

“What happened when Luca turned twenty-one?” I asked.

Margaret sat on the edge of the bed.

“Your mother wanted to see you. She’d been practicing walking with help because she wanted to stand when you came.”

Luca looked at Elena.

“You tried to see me?”

She nodded.

Margaret’s voice shook.

“We arranged to take her to your birthday celebration. But something happened.”

“What happened?”

“Your father found out.”

Luca waited.

Margaret stared at the floor.

“I was supposed to bring you to her.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I was afraid.”

“Of him?”

She nodded.

Luca looked toward his mother.

“Mom, I would have come.”

Elena began crying.

He held her until she settled.

Then he looked at Margaret.

“We’re going to talk about that birthday. All of it. But not while she’s this upset.”

Margaret nodded gratefully.

Outside, dawn was still hours away.

Luca asked Miriam whether his mother could have something to eat.

She suggested toast and tea.

I went into the kitchen with Margaret.

We were buttering the toast when Miriam appeared with the transfer folder.

“I think you both need to see something.”

She opened it to the authorization page.

There were two signatures.

One belonged to Carlo Romano, the owner of the private-care company.

The other appeared beneath the words Family Representative.

I recognized the handwriting immediately.

I’d seen it on wedding invitations scattered across the mansion for weeks.

BIANCA ROMANO.

Miriam looked at Luca.

“Your fiancée signed the request to remove your mother from this house.”

Luca took the folder.

And beneath Bianca’s signature, he found something worse.

A second instruction stated that Elena’s new location was not to be disclosed to Luca Moretti.