Chapter 2
For the first time, I remembered the frightened way she had spoken when Lily approached.
Not the voice of a woman guarding a criminal secret.
The voice of someone watching a buried mistake walk toward her in a pink raincoat.
“Elena came to see you the day before she left,” Isabella said.
I frowned.
“I was in Boston.”
“I know.”
“She came to my apartment?”
“No. Your office.”
I went still.
“I was there because your assistant had asked me to drop off the guest list for the Moretti Foundation dinner. Elena arrived while I was waiting.”
“What did she want?”
“To leave something for you.”
I already knew.
“A letter.”
“Yes.”
My grip tightened around the photograph.
“The letter I received?”
“No.”
The air seemed to thin.
“What?”
“The letter she gave me wasn’t the one you received.”
For several seconds, I could not understand the words.
Then I did.
“You replaced it.”
“Yes.”
The park became strangely loud again.
A dog barked.
A bicycle bell rang.
Someone laughed near the path.
Ordinary life continued around us while mine rearranged itself.
“What did Elena’s letter say?”
“I never opened it.”
“Then how did you know what to replace it with?”
“I didn’t. Not exactly.”
“Isabella.”
“She told me enough.”
I waited.
“She was frightened,” Isabella said. “Not of you. Of your life.”
That distinction mattered, even through my anger.
“She had just discovered she was pregnant. She wanted to tell you. But she also wanted you to promise that if you chose her and the baby, you would leave the family business.”
I lowered my head.
That sounded like Elena.
She had never demanded expensive gifts.
Never cared about the houses, cars or restaurants that other people associated with my name.
She wanted ordinary Sundays.
She wanted grocery stores.
She wanted a kitchen table where nobody lowered their voice when business was mentioned.
And I had always told her, Someday.
Someday was an easy word when you were young enough to believe you owned an unlimited number of days.
“What did you tell her?”
“That you wouldn’t leave.”
“You didn’t know that.”
“No.”
“Did you tell her I said it?”
Isabella’s silence answered.
I stood.
“Dominic.”
I stepped away from the bench.
My cane touched the edge of the path.
“Tell me exactly what you did.”
She began crying quietly.
I had heard Isabella cry only twice before: once at her father’s funeral and once in the hospital when doctors told me my vision might never return.
“I told Elena that you already knew about the pregnancy.”
My entire body went still.
“And?”
“I told her you said a child would complicate everything.”
I could barely speak.
“You told her I knew.”
“Yes.”
“And then you gave me a false letter saying she had left me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I was twenty-eight and jealous and convinced that I understood what was best for everyone.”
Her voice cracked.
“My father had spent years telling me our families should join. Everyone assumed you and I would eventually marry. Then Elena appeared, and you were different with her. I had never seen you choose anyone so completely.”
“So you chose for me.”
“Yes.”
“That was not yours to choose.”
“I know.”
“No, Isabella. You know it now.”
She did not defend herself.
That was the only reason I remained where I was.
The woman I had intended to marry in twenty-three days had built our future on an omission that had lasted four years.
But she was not pretending otherwise.
“When did you see Elena again?”
“Three years ago.”
I turned.
“Where?”
“At a pediatric clinic in Brooklyn.”
“You knew where she was?”
“After that day, yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“She asked me not to.”
I almost laughed.
“You suddenly respected her wishes?”
“I deserved that.”
“What happened?”
“She saw me before I saw her. Lily was with her. Elena pulled me into the hallway and told me never to come near them.”
“Did you tell her the truth?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Cowardice.”
The answer came without hesitation.
I had expected explanations.
Instead she gave me the ugliest word herself.
“I was already part of your life again,” she continued. “Not romantically yet. But close. I kept telling myself that Elena had made a new life and you had made one too. I told myself reopening everything would hurt all of you.”
“You mean it would hurt you.”
“Yes.”
The honesty landed differently.
It did not forgive anything.
But it prevented the conversation from becoming another lie.
Footsteps approached.
May and Lily returned.
Lily was discussing marshmallows with great seriousness.
“Six is enough,” May said.
“Seven is lucky.”
“Since when?”
“Since now.”
I heard a paper cup being placed on the bench.
Lily came toward me.
“I got you seven.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She leaned close.
“Are you sad?”
Adults often ask questions they do not really want answered.
Children sometimes do the opposite.
“A little,” I said.
She considered this.
“Mama says hot chocolate helps a little.”
“I think she may be right.”
May cleared her throat.
“Elena finishes work at five.”
I looked up.
“Where?”
“She’s an occupational therapist at St. Catherine’s rehabilitation center.”
That surprised me.
“She left research?”
“She changed fields after Lily was born.”
“Can I see her?”
May was quiet.
“I can call her.”
“No.”
I thought of Elena learning that her daughter had accidentally found me in Central Park.
I imagined four years of carefully constructed safety collapsing through a phone call.
“No surprises,” I said. “Tell her what happened. Tell her I know enough to understand she owes me nothing today. Ask if she’ll meet me.”
May’s voice softened.
“I’ll do that.”
Lily tugged my sleeve.
“Mister Dominic?”
“Yes?”
“My mama really does know about eyes.”
I smiled faintly.
“She’s an occupational therapist.”
“She reads big books.”
May laughed.
“She means Elena has been helping with a clinical rehabilitation program for people with visual impairment. One of the neurologists there reviews difficult cases.”
My attention sharpened.
“What does that have to do with me?”
May hesitated.
“Nothing, officially.”
“Unofficially?”
“Elena saw your name in a newspaper article after the attack. She looked up the public statements about your diagnosis.”
“And?”
“She thought something sounded wrong.”
I remembered Lily’s words.
Your eyes aren’t dead.
They’re sleeping.
“Wrong how?”
“She’d need to explain it. I don’t understand the medicine.”
Isabella rose.
“We should go home.”
I turned toward her.
“There is no ‘we’ today.”
She absorbed that quietly.
“I understand.”
“No wedding planning. No decisions made for me. Tell Carlo I want my appointments transferred back to my office.”
“You don’t have to worry. I’ll take care of it.”
The irony hung between us.
Isabella heard it too.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
I nodded once.
“I’ll take care of my own life.”
Then I asked May to call me.
She did at 6:17 that evening.
I was in the library of my townhouse, sitting in a chair I had come to dislike because Isabella had moved it three feet closer to the fireplace after I went blind.
Six months ago, I would not have noticed three feet.
Now I noticed everything.
“Dominic?” May said.
“Yes.”
“I spoke to Elena.”
I stood.
“What did she say?”
May paused.
“She said she’ll meet you tomorrow morning.”
My heart climbed into my throat.
“Where?”
“St. Catherine’s. Ten o’clock.”
“Thank you.”
“There’s one more thing.”
I waited.
“She asked whether you still have the original hospital scans from the night you lost your sight.”
“I assume so.”
“Bring them.”
“Why?”
“Because she showed the newspaper details about your injury to a neurologist she works with. Elena never had access to your records, so they couldn’t say anything definite.”
“But?”
“But the neurologist said complete permanent blindness from the injury described publicly would be unusual without certain findings.”
I gripped the phone.
“What are you telling me?”
“I’m telling you what Elena asked me to tell you.”
May took a breath.
“She thinks there is a possibility the diagnosis you accepted six months ago was incomplete.”
I could not speak.
“And Dominic?”
“Yes?”
“Apparently, three months ago, Elena tried to contact you about it.”
My pulse slowed.
“How?”
“She sent a registered letter to your townhouse.”
I closed my eyes out of habit.
I remembered no letter.
“Who signed for it?”
May read the name from the delivery receipt.
“Isabella Romano.”
And in the darkness that had become my world, a question formed more frightening than anger.
May you like
If Isabella had hidden Elena’s letter four years ago…
what exactly had she hidden three months ago?
