My pregnant sister looked me in the eyes and said, "Your seventeen-year-old son won't survive the night unless you give me what I want." -

Chapter 10 – THE PHOTOGRAPH

A few weeks after Celeste’s visit, Anthony brought a girl home for dinner.

Her name was Juliette, a bright, intelligent French literature student he had met at the university.

Vincent spent three hours in the kitchen making his famous baked ziti, determined to impress her.

As we sat around the small dining table in our apartment above the bakery, the room was filled with laughter and the clinking of wine glasses.

Juliette noticed a small, framed photograph resting on the mantle.

It was the only picture we had kept from our old life.

It was a picture of me, Vincent, and Anthony when he was seven years old, standing on the pier in Chicago.

“Is this your home in America?” Juliette asked in her charming accent.

Anthony looked at the picture, then at his father.

“It was,” Anthony smiled. “But it wasn’t really home.”

Juliette looked confused. “No?”

“No,” Vincent answered gently, raising his glass of wine and looking directly at me. “Home isn’t a city. It isn’t a house. Home is wherever my wife and son are.”

I felt my cheeks flush, my heart swelling with an overwhelming sense of gratitude.

After dinner, when Anthony walked Juliette to the metro station, Vincent and I stood on our small balcony, looking out over the glowing rooftops of Paris.

Vincent wrapped his arms around me from behind, resting his chin on my shoulder.

“You know,” he whispered. “I kept something else from Chicago.”

I turned my head. “What?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small velvet box.

He opened it.

Inside was a simple, elegant diamond ring.

“Vincent,” I gasped.

“When we got married seventeen years ago, I gave you a ring paid for with blood money,” Vincent said softly. “I gave you a life built on lies. You threw that ring at me the night of the gala. And you had every right to.”

He took the ring from the box.

“I bought this with the money from the bakery. Honest money. From an honest man.”

He looked into my eyes, his own shining with unshed tears.

“Evelyn Moretti. Will you marry me again? For real this time?”