Chapter 1 – The Letters He Never Read

“Camille, I asked you to bring me the letters. I didn’t ask you to explain why I shouldn’t read them.”

Lorenzo Moretti stood at the end of the dining table, holding his daughter’s graduation ticket between two tattooed fingers.

Camille hadn’t moved from the doorway.

“They’re not here,” she said.

Olivia looked up sharply.

“What?”

“I returned them to your apartment, Olivia. You know that.”

“All thirty-one?”

“Yes.”

“Then bring me whatever you kept,” Lorenzo said.

Camille gave a short, disbelieving laugh.

“Are you seriously going to interrogate me in front of the housemaid?”

I was standing beside the three chairs I’d arranged for Olivia’s pretend graduation. My ridiculous napkin hat was still lying on the table.

Until that moment, I’d been hoping somebody would remember I was an employee and let me disappear.

Instead, Lorenzo looked directly at me.

“Miss Parker was the only person in this house who knew my daughter was graduating. She stays.”

Camille’s face tightened.

“You’re embarrassing me.”

“No,” he said. “I’m asking you a question you’ve had several chances to answer.”

Olivia slowly removed her graduation cap.

The little gold tassel caught against her hair, and I reached over to free it.

“Thanks, Hannah,” she whispered.

I squeezed her shoulder.

Camille watched us.

Something about that small gesture seemed to upset her more than Lorenzo’s questions.

“You don’t understand what the last two years have been like,” she said. “Every time Olivia’s name came up, you were miserable. You stopped sleeping. You buried yourself in work.”

Lorenzo’s expression changed.

“That part is true.”

Olivia looked down.

He turned toward her.

“After our fight, I told Camille I needed a little time before we spoke again. I was angry, and I didn’t trust myself to say the right thing.”

“A little time?” Olivia repeated.

“I thought we were talking about a few days.”

Camille folded her arms.

“You said you didn’t want another argument.”

“I didn’t say I never wanted another letter from my daughter.”

For the first time, Camille looked frightened.

Not because he had raised his voice.

He hadn’t.

Because he’d stopped accepting her version of events.

I cleared my throat.

“Mr. Moretti?”

Three faces turned toward me.

I wished I’d stayed quiet.

But I’d spent thirteen days sorting this household’s linen cupboards, cleaning its guest rooms, and learning which drawers Camille wanted left alone.

And there was something I remembered.

“On my first morning, Mrs. Bellini showed me the mail cabinet beside your study.”

Camille straightened.

“Hannah, that’s enough.”

“She said anything addressed to Miss Olivia should go into the blue tray. I thought she meant mail you were forwarding to her.”

Lorenzo looked at Camille.

“There’s a separate tray for my daughter’s mail?”

“It’s simply an organizational system.”

“Show me.”

Camille hesitated before leading us through the adjoining doorway.

His study smelled faintly of cedar and leather. A brass desk lamp illuminated a stack of unopened business correspondence.

Beside the bookcase stood a narrow walnut cabinet.

Camille unlocked it with a small silver key.

Inside were three trays.

White.

Black.

Blue.

The blue one held a leather-bound notebook and two cream envelopes.

Lorenzo picked up the notebook.

Its pages were divided into columns.

Dates. Senders. Recipients. Disposition.

He turned several pages without speaking.

Then he stopped.

“January fourteenth. Olivia Moretti. Returned.”

Another page.

“February second. Olivia Moretti. Returned.”

He continued turning.

I watched Olivia’s expression change as she recognized dates.

“My first anatomy exam,” she whispered.

Another page.

“The day I got accepted into clinical training.”

Lorenzo’s hand paused.

“March nineteenth.”

Olivia swallowed.

“Your birthday.”

He looked up.

She gave a small, miserable shrug.

“I sent you a card. I didn’t know whether you still liked the chocolate cake from that bakery on Taylor Street.”

He closed the notebook.

For several seconds, nobody spoke.

Then he turned to Camille.

“You kept records of every letter you intercepted.”

“I kept records of correspondence. That’s normal in a house like this.”

“Not when the correspondence is from my daughter.”

Camille looked toward Olivia.

“Your father was hurting. I was trying to protect him.”

Olivia’s voice was quiet.

“From me?”

Camille didn’t answer.

Lorenzo opened the first cream envelope.

It contained a photocopy of a letter Olivia had written the previous spring.

Dad, I passed my medication calculations exam. I know you wanted me to do something different, but I think I’m finally becoming someone I can be proud of.

Below that, in smaller handwriting:

I still wish I could tell you things.

Lorenzo read the second line twice.

Then he carefully set the page on his desk.

“I remember that week,” he said.

Olivia looked at him.

“You do?”

“I had dinner at your favorite restaurant. Ordered the baked ziti you used to steal off my plate.”

He smiled without humor.

“I told Camille I wondered whether you’d passed your exams.”

Olivia stared at him.

“I had.”

“I know.”

“No, Dad. You don’t understand.”

Her voice broke.

“I was standing outside the nursing school when they posted the results. Everybody was calling their families. I wrote you that letter sitting on the curb because I didn’t think I could hear your voice without crying.”

He reached for her hand.

She let him take it.

Camille shifted near the cabinet.

“There is something else,” she said.

Lorenzo turned.

“Then say it.”

She looked at the blue notebook.

“Olivia wasn’t interested in being involved with the family foundation. I tried to give her the opportunity.”

Olivia frowned.

“What foundation?”

Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed.

“The Rosa Moretti Nursing Fund.”

Olivia went still.

Her mother’s name seemed to change the temperature of the room.

“What nursing fund?”

Camille closed her eyes briefly.

Lorenzo looked between them.

“Olivia, your mother left instructions for a fund that would help people train as nurses. I established it after she died.”

“You never told me.”

“I thought Camille had.”

Olivia slowly withdrew her hand.

Camille reached into the cabinet and removed a thin gray folder.

“Your daughter declined the invitation to participate. I have the correspondence.”

She placed it on the desk.

Lorenzo opened it.

There was a formal letter appointing Olivia to a student advisory position.

Beneath it sat a one-page response.

At the bottom was a signature.

Olivia Moretti.

Lorenzo held it toward his daughter.

“Did you sign this?”

Olivia read the document.

Once.

Then again.

Her face drained of color.

“No.”

Camille stepped forward.

“Olivia, perhaps you’ve forgotten—”

“I have never seen this paper.”

Lorenzo lowered his gaze to the signature.

His expression became terribly calm.

“Camille,” he said, “tell me why my daughter’s name is on a document she never signed.”

And Olivia, staring at the paper, whispered something worse.

“Dad, look at the date.”

She pointed to the bottom corner.

“That was the day I sent you my nursing school acceptance letter.”

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