Chapter 7 - The Woman at Table SixThree months after the twins' second birthday, a woman began coming to the bakery every Thursday.
At first, I didn't notice her.
Three Families had become busier than I had ever expected.
Not enormous.
Not fashionable.
Not the kind of place people photographed because the ceiling had imported chandeliers or because someone had decided coffee tasted better when served in cups too small to hold a reasonable amount of it.
It was simply busy.
Warm.
Alive.
By seven every morning, the front windows fogged from the ovens.
By eight, the first regulars arrived.
Mr. Patel from the pharmacy across the street always ordered one black coffee and a cinnamon roll he insisted he was buying for his receptionist.
He had been making that claim for eleven months.
His receptionist had never seen a cinnamon roll.
At nine, parents appeared after school drop-off.
At eleven, the lunch crowd began.
And every Thursday at precisely ten fifteen, the woman took table six.
She looked to be in her late sixties.
Silver hair.
Camel-colored coat.
Black leather gloves.
She always ordered tea.
Never coffee.
Never food.
And she always sat facing the old sign above the door.
For the families we choose.
The first few weeks, I assumed she liked the bakery.
By the fifth week, I realized she was watching me.
Not constantly.
That would have been easier.
Instead, she watched when she thought I wouldn't notice.
When I carried trays.
When I spoke to customers.
When Mia wandered downstairs holding one shoe and demanding toast.
When Victor came through the door after work and automatically kissed my temple before stealing whatever pastry had been damaged badly enough that I couldn't sell it.
The woman watched all of it.
On the sixth Thursday, Elena noticed too.
"Table six," she murmured.
I was piping lemon cream into tart shells.
"What about her?"
"She keeps looking at you."
"I know."
"And you're not concerned?"
"Should I be?"
Elena glanced toward the woman.
"I've watched enough crime documentaries to know that mysterious elderly women are never harmless."
I looked at her.
"That's your lesson from crime documentaries?"
"One of them."
"You also think every husband who buys a shovel is planning murder."
"Depends on the size of the shovel."
I laughed.
Then the bell above the door rang.
Victor entered.
He was carrying Mia.
Our daughter had apparently decided pants were optional.
She wore a purple sweater, one sock, a diaper, and an expression suggesting she had won a complicated legal dispute.
I stared.
"Where are her pants?"
Victor looked offended by the question.
"I had them when we left the house."
"You lost our daughter's pants?"
"I didn't lose them."
Mia held up something purple.
Her pants.
Victor closed his eyes.
"Apparently she removed them in the car."
"You didn't notice?"
"I was driving."
"Reasonable."
"Thank you."
"Still embarrassing."
"Less helpful."
Leo followed Daniel through the door.
Unlike his sister, he was completely dressed.
Unfortunately, his sweater was backward.
I looked at Daniel.
He raised both hands.
"Not my department."
"You dressed him."
"I supervised."
"Poorly."
"I reject that characterization."
The bakery filled with laughter.
I came around the counter.
Victor kissed me.
Nothing dramatic.
Just the ordinary kiss of a man who had kissed me thousands of times and had somehow learned not to treat ordinary affection as something that could be postponed indefinitely.
"Meeting canceled," he said.
"So you kidnapped the children?"
"They're legally mine."
"Debatable."
Mia reached for me.
I took her.
Then I noticed table six.
The woman had gone completely still.
She wasn't looking at me anymore.
She was staring at Victor.
More specifically, she was staring at Mia in my arms.
Her face had lost color.
I felt something tighten in my stomach.
Victor noticed.
Of course he did.
For all the ways my husband had once failed to understand emotion, he had always been exceptionally good at detecting danger.
His posture changed almost imperceptibly.
"Who is she?"
"I don't know."
"She's been here before?"
"Every Thursday for six weeks."
Victor looked at me.
"And you're telling me now?"
There was no accusation in his voice.
But the old version of us heard one anyway.
I stiffened.
Victor saw it immediately.
He exhaled.
"That sounded wrong."
"Yes."
"I'm not asking why you didn't report to me."
"Good."
"I'm asking whether anything happened before today."
"No."
He nodded.
Then he looked at the woman again.
She was already standing.
She placed money beneath her teacup.
Too much.
Then she walked toward the door.
When she passed us, her eyes met mine.
There was grief in them.
Not hostility.
Not anger.
Grief.
Then she looked at Victor.
"Carlo's son."
Victor froze.
The woman opened the door.
"Wait."
She didn't.
Victor handed Leo to Daniel and followed her outside.
I moved to the window.
The woman was already crossing the street.
Victor called after her.
She stopped.
For several seconds, they spoke.
I couldn't hear them.
Then the woman reached into her handbag.
She gave Victor something.
A photograph.
Even through the glass, I recognized the way his face changed.
Victor rarely showed shock.
I had watched him negotiate through disasters that made other people sweat through their shirts.
I had watched him remain calm while doctors rushed Leo into an incubator.
I had watched him stand in the middle of our collapsing marriage and insist he could solve everything because admitting fear felt impossible.
But now he looked shocked.
Truly shocked.
The woman walked away.
Victor didn't follow.
He remained on the sidewalk.
The photograph in his hand.
I gave Mia to Elena.
Then I went outside.
The March wind cut through my sweater.
"Victor?"
He didn't answer.
I stepped closer.
"What did she give you?"
Slowly, he turned the photograph toward me.
It was old.
Maybe thirty years old.
Four people stood in front of the bakery.
My father.
Anthony Moretti.
Carlo Rinaldi.
And a woman.
Young.
Dark-haired.
Beautiful.
She was standing beside Carlo.
His arm was around her waist.
I looked at Victor.
"Who is she?"
"I don't know."
"She knew your father."
"Apparently."
I turned the photograph over.
There was writing on the back.
David, Anthony, Carlo & Rose.
Summer 1994.
Rose.
I looked toward the street.
The silver-haired woman had disappeared.
"Was that her?"
Victor nodded.
"What did she say?"
His jaw tightened.
"She asked whether my mother knew the bakery was open again."
"Does she?"
"Yes."
"Then what?"
Victor looked at me.
"She said I should ask my mother why Rose Bellamy disappeared."
A cold sensation moved across my skin.
"Who is Rose Bellamy?"
"I have no idea."
That afternoon, Victor called his mother.
She didn't answer.
He called again.
Nothing.
That alone was strange.
Lucia Rinaldi always answered Victor.
Always.
Even if only to tell him she was busy.
At six, we closed the bakery.
At six fifteen, Victor's phone rang.
His mother.
He answered immediately.
"Mom."
I stood beside him while he listened.
His expression changed.
"Yes."
Pause.
"No."
Another pause.
Then:
"Who is Rose Bellamy?"
Silence.
Long enough that I could hear the faint sound of Lucia breathing through the phone.
Finally, Victor said, "Mom?"
Her voice was too quiet for me to understand.
Victor's eyes met mine.
"Where are you?"
Another pause.
"We're coming."
He ended the call.
"What happened?"
"She wants to talk in person."
"About Rose?"
"Yes."
Something in his face worried me.
"What did she say?"
Victor looked at the photograph again.
"She said she hoped she'd never have to explain."
We drove to Lucia's house after Elena agreed to keep the twins.
The house was unusually dark.
Lucia was waiting in the sitting room.
No makeup.
No jewelry.
A glass of untouched wine on the table.
She looked older than she had that morning.
Victor placed the photograph in front of her.
"Who is she?"
Lucia didn't touch it.
"Rose Bellamy."
"We established that."
"Victor."
"Mom."
I touched his arm.
Not to silence him.
Only to remind him that questions didn't need to become weapons.
He exhaled.
Then sat.
"Please."
Lucia looked at me.
"Nora, I am sorry."
Those words immediately frightened me.
"For what?"
"For not telling either of you."
"Tell us what?"
She looked at her son.
"Rose was your father's first wife."
The room went silent.
Victor didn't move.
I wasn't sure I had heard correctly.
"His what?"
"First wife."
Victor stood.
"My father was married before you?"
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"Six years."
"And nobody thought this was information I should have?"
"Victor—"
"Did Daniel know?"
"No."
"Did anyone?"
"Anthony."
"My father-in-law?"
"Yes."
"David?"
Lucia looked at me.
"Your father knew."
Of course.
Another secret buried beneath the bakery.
Victor paced toward the window.
"When?"
"Carlo married Rose when he was twenty-two."
"Why did they divorce?"
Lucia's face tightened.
"They didn't."
Victor turned.
I felt the air leave my lungs.
"What do you mean?"
Lucia stared at the old photograph.
"Rose disappeared."
The word settled heavily.
"Disappeared how?" I asked.
"She left."
"That's not disappearing."
"We believed she'd left."
"You believed?"
Lucia's hands tightened together.
"Carlo received a letter."
"What letter?"
"A letter from Rose saying she was leaving Chicago and didn't want to be found."
Victor's voice became dangerously quiet.
"And he married you."
"Seven years later."
"Without divorcing her?"
"Rose was declared legally dead."
I stared at Lucia.
"Declared dead?"
"After seven years."
Victor's face had gone pale.
"But she's alive."
"Yes."
"You knew?"
"No."
The answer came sharply.
"I swear to you, Victor, I did not know."
"Then why were you afraid to explain?"
Lucia looked toward the photograph.
"Because of what happened before she vanished."
"What happened?"
She closed her eyes.
"Rose was pregnant."
I stopped breathing.
Victor didn't move.
Lucia continued.
"She was five months pregnant when she disappeared."
The room seemed to tilt.
Victor finally sat again.
"My father had another child?"
"We don't know."
"If she was pregnant—"
"We don't know whether the baby survived."
"Did Dad search for her?"
"For years."
"Police?"
"Yes."
"Private investigators?"
"Several."
"Then why did she tell him she didn't want to be found?"
"We never knew."
Victor rubbed both hands over his face.
I looked at Lucia.
"Why come back now?"
"I don't know."
"But she came to my bakery for six weeks."
Lucia's gaze moved to me.
That frightened me more.
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"She watched my children."
Lucia went still.
"She saw Mia today."
Something passed across Lucia's face.
Recognition.
Fear.
"Lucia?"
She stood abruptly.
"I need to show you something."
She disappeared upstairs.
Victor looked at me.
Neither of us spoke.
Five minutes later, Lucia returned carrying a small wooden box.
Inside were photographs.
Dozens.
Carlo young.
Carlo with Anthony.
Carlo with my father.
And Rose.
Lucia found one picture.
She handed it to me.
Rose was perhaps twenty-three.
Her hair was tied back.
She was laughing toward the camera.
I stared at her face.
Then I understood.
The eyes.
Mia's eyes.
Not exactly.
But close enough to make my stomach tighten.
Victor saw it too.
"No."
Lucia sat.
"Carlo used to say Mia looked familiar."
Victor stared at her.
"You never mentioned that."
"I thought he meant someone in our family."
"He died before Mia was born."
"Your father saw the ultrasound photographs."
Victor went completely still.
Lucia looked at him.
"Victor, there is something else."
He laughed once.
Without humor.
"Of course there is."
"When Carlo was dying, he asked me to find Rose."
"Why?"
"He said there was something she needed to know."
"What?"
"He wouldn't tell me."
Victor stood again.
"I need air."
He walked outside.
I followed a minute later.
He stood beneath the porch light.
Hands in his pockets.
Shoulders rigid.
I stopped beside him.
"You don't have to solve this tonight."
He laughed quietly.
"I know."
That answer surprised me.
Two years earlier, he would already have investigators searching records.
He would have called Daniel.
Sylvia.
Lawyers.
Everyone.
Instead, he stood still.
"I want to," he admitted.
"I know."
"My father spent years hiding things."
"So did mine."
"And every time I think we've finally uncovered the last secret—"
"Another one appears."
He looked at me.
"What if I have a brother or sister?"
"Then you have a brother or sister."
"What if my father knew?"
"Then we'll find out."
"What if my mother knew more than she's telling us?"
"Then we'll deal with that too."
His jaw tightened.
I touched his hand.
"But not by deciding what everyone else needs before they get to speak."
Victor looked at me.
Then nodded.
"Right."
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
We both looked at it.
Victor answered.
"Hello?"
Silence.
Then his expression changed.
"Yes."
He looked at me.
"It's her."
Rose.
Victor put the phone on speaker.
A woman's voice came through.
Older.
Steady.
"I'm sorry I approached you that way."
Victor said nothing.
"I wasn't sure you were Carlo's son until I saw you with the little girl."
"My daughter."
"I know."
"What do you want?"
A pause.
"To correct something your mother probably just told you."
Victor and I exchanged a glance.
"What?"
Rose inhaled.
"I did not leave your father."
Victor's fingers tightened around the phone.
"Then what happened?"
"I was made to leave."
"By whom?"
Silence.
Then Rose said a name.
Not Lucia.
Not Anthony.
Not Carlo.
My father's.
"David."
For several seconds, I couldn't understand the word.
Then I did.
My father.
Rose continued quietly.
May you like
"Your wife's father was the last person I saw before I disappeared."
And the call ended.
