Chapter 5

“I didn’t sign anything sending you away.”

Luca spoke immediately.

Sophie searched his face.

“Are you sure?”

The question hurt him.

I could see it.

But he didn’t ask her how she could doubt him.

He answered as though she deserved the truth.

“I’m sure I never agreed to send you to live at Briarfield.”

Vanessa looked toward the staircase.

“Luca, you did sign a family-support authorization.”

He turned.

“What authorization?”

“The paperwork I brought to your study three weeks ago.”

He was silent.

I remembered that afternoon.

Luca had spent most of it reviewing contracts with his business associates.

Vanessa had gone into his study carrying several folders.

I’d brought coffee upstairs just before four.

When I entered, Luca was reading something on his computer.

Vanessa was standing beside him, pointing to a page.

I hadn’t thought anything of it.

Now Luca seemed to remember, too.

“You asked me to approve an inquiry.”

“I asked you to support an assessment.”

“An assessment isn’t a residential placement.”

“No. But it was the first step.”

“You never mentioned the second.”

Vanessa looked at the floor.

Luca took Sophie’s hand.

“Come downstairs with me, sweetheart. I want to look at the paperwork before anyone says another word about where you’re going.”

We returned to the dining room.

The chandeliers had been dimmed, but the candles still burned along the table.

Half-empty water glasses stood beside abandoned dessert plates.

The room looked strangely ordinary.

A few hours earlier, I’d been worried about whether the pastry chef had made enough lemon tarts.

Now we were trying to determine whether a ten-year-old girl had been enrolled in a residential school without her father’s knowledge.

Luca cleared a space at the end of the table.

Vanessa opened the folder.

She removed two pages and pushed them toward him.

“There.”

The first was a request for an educational consultation.

It contained Sophie’s name, age, and a short description of her difficulties after Claire’s death.

At the bottom was Luca’s signature.

I recognized it.

His handwritten signature appeared on household checks and the occasional delivery authorization.

This one looked exactly the same.

Luca examined it.

“I remember approving a consultation.”

Vanessa nodded.

“That’s what I’ve been saying.”

He turned to the second page.

It was titled Residential Support Recommendation.

His expression changed.

“This is not the same document.”

“It’s part of the same file.”

“There’s a section here about long-term accommodation.”

“It describes possible services.”

“Then why is my name attached to it?”

Vanessa reached across the table.

“Because the school combines the documents.”

Luca held the page away from her.

“Let me read it.”

Sophie sat quietly beside me.

Her blue coat was draped across her lap.

After a moment, she whispered, “Miss Emily?”

“Yes?”

“Do grown-ups sometimes sign things and forget?”

“Sometimes,” I said carefully.

“Even important things?”

I looked at Luca.

He was still reading.

“Sometimes they don’t understand everything they’re agreeing to,” I answered.

Sophie thought about that.

“That’s bad.”

“It can be.”

She looked down at her coat.

“Then maybe Daddy didn’t mean it.”

The tenderness of that answer nearly undid me.

She was trying to find a way to forgive him for something he hadn’t done.

Luca turned another page.

“This says Sophie requested placement.”

Vanessa nodded.

“She completed the assessment herself.”

“Where is it?”

Vanessa removed a stapled questionnaire.

Luca placed it in front of Sophie.

“Sweetheart, do you remember filling this out?”

“Yes.”

“Was Vanessa helping you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did anyone explain what the answers would be used for?”

Sophie considered that.

“She said a nice lady wanted to know what made me sad.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Luca said.

He turned the paper toward her.

“Can you show me which parts you wrote?”

She pointed to the first section.

Her handwriting was unmistakable.

Small letters.

Uneven spacing.

The occasional reversed curve.

She had written that she missed her mother.

That she didn’t always sleep well.

That she worried about disappointing people.

Then Luca reached a question near the bottom.

Would you prefer to live somewhere different while your family adjusts to a new marriage?

The answer was checked YES.

He glanced at Sophie.

“Did you check this?”

She nodded reluctantly.

“Why?”

“Because Vanessa said it would make everybody less worried.”

Luca read the next question.

Do you feel that your presence causes difficulties at home?

He looked up.

“Sophie?”

She began picking at a loose thread on her sleeve.

“I didn’t know what presence meant.”

The room went quiet.

“What did Vanessa tell you it meant?” Luca asked.

“She said it meant being around.”

“And why did you say yes?”

Sophie shrugged.

“Because I make things difficult.”

Luca pressed his hand against the table.

He was trying very hard to remain calm.

“Who told you that?”

Sophie looked toward Vanessa.

Vanessa spoke quietly.

“I said weddings can be difficult when people are upset.”

“That’s not the same as telling a child she’s difficult,” Luca replied.

“I know.”

The answer surprised us both.

Vanessa sat down.

“I should have explained it differently.”

Luca looked at the final section.

The questionnaire had been summarized by an adult.

The printed summary said Sophie had expressed a desire to live away from her father during the transition.

But Sophie’s actual answers were about something else entirely.

She wanted her father to stop being sad.

She wanted Vanessa to stop getting upset.

She wanted everyone to be happy.

Luca pushed the paper aside.

“Sophie, did you ever tell anyone you wanted to stop living with me?”

Her answer was barely audible.

“No.”

“Then why does this paper say you did?”

She looked frightened again.

“I told Vanessa I would go if it helped.”

Luca closed his eyes.

For a long moment, he said nothing.

Then Sophie touched his wrist.

“Daddy, don’t be mad. I was trying to be brave.”

He turned toward her.

“You shouldn’t have had to be brave about leaving your own home.”

Vanessa whispered, “Luca, please don’t make this harder for her.”

He opened his eyes.

“No, Vanessa. I think we’ve been making it easier for ourselves.”

He picked up the signed authorization.

Then he placed it beside the original consultation request.

Both signatures were identical.

Not similar.

Identical.

The same curve.

The same spacing.

Even the tiny interruption in the final stroke.

Luca stared at them.

Then he looked at Vanessa.

“Why does my signature appear in exactly the same position on two different documents?”

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