Chapter 5
Marco did too.
For the first time, he stopped feeling like Marco Bellini.
He sounded like my mother’s brother.
That distinction mattered.
“I think there are more letters here,” I said.
“I would like to read them someday.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe is more than I deserve.”
Before hanging up, I asked one final question.
“What is the second document?”
He sighed.
“A trust amendment.”
“What kind?”
“Your grandparents created the original trust for the lake property. Years later, your mother drafted an amendment with Sofia.”
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“What did it change?”
“I never saw the completed version.”
“But you know what she intended.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“The lake house was supposed to become a family foundation property.”
“For charity?”
“Partly. Your mother wanted music programs there during the summer. Sofia wanted scholarships.”
That sounded so much like both women that my chest hurt.
“And why would that stop her from coming home?”
“Because my father opposed it.”
“Why?”
“The property was valuable.”
Of course.
“He believed giving control to a foundation would waste an asset. Mariana believed keeping it as another symbol of family wealth would waste something more important.”
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I stared at a photograph of my mother holding me as a baby.
“Did they argue?”
“Yes.”
“And she left.”
“She had already left years earlier. But that ended whatever hope existed of repairing things.”
“Where is the amendment?”
“I believed Sofia kept it.”
I thought of the Moretti archive.
“Then we should look.”
We.
The word escaped before I could stop it.
Marco noticed.
He didn’t comment.
“I can meet you there.”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
I still wasn’t ready for that.
“Send me whatever details you remember.”
“I will.”
When I returned to the mansion, Alessandro was in his office.
I knocked.
“Come in.”
He looked up from his desk.
His shoulders visibly relaxed when he saw me.
“You dismissed Ethan?”
“I released him from his heroic coffee assignment.”
“He complained.”
“I’m sure.”
I placed my mother’s notebook on his desk.
“I think I know what we’re looking for.”
For the next two hours, we searched boxes from Sofia Moretti’s archived personal belongings.
Ethan joined us.
So did Alessandro’s younger sister, Lucia, who arrived halfway through and immediately demanded an explanation.
Unlike Alessandro, Lucia was expressive, warm, and incapable of hiding an opinion.
“So Grace is technically a Bellini?”
“Apparently.”
Lucia looked delighted.
“That explains why you argue with Alessandro without blinking.”
“That is not hereditary,” Alessandro said.
Lucia ignored him.
By late afternoon, we had found dozens of letters between Sofia and Mariana.
They were not dramatic.
That made them more touching.
They discussed children.
Recipes.
Books.
Marriages.
Regrets.
In one letter, Sofia wrote:
Alessandro is fifteen and thinks speaking in complete sentences is optional.
I looked at him.
He took the letter from my hand.
“My mother exaggerated.”
Lucia laughed from across the room.
“She absolutely did not.”
Another letter mentioned the trust amendment.
I read aloud.
I signed it today. Mariana says she will bring her copy when we meet at the house next month. If Vittorio and Marco ever stop behaving like offended emperors, perhaps we’ll let them visit.
Alessandro rubbed a hand over his face.
“Our mothers were cruel.”
“They were accurate,” Lucia said.
But there was no amendment.
We searched until dinner.
Nothing.
Then Ethan found an inventory sheet.
“Wait.”
He pointed to a line near the bottom.
One cedar document chest, transferred to Lake Geneva residence, 2018.
Everyone went quiet.
Alessandro looked at me.
“The lake house.”
The place at the center of everything.
We drove there the next morning.
The property stood on a quiet stretch of shoreline surrounded by tall trees.
It was beautiful.
Not enormous by Moretti standards.
Warm stone.
Dark wood.
A wide porch overlooking the water.
It looked less like a trophy and more like a place someone might actually have loved.
Marco was already there.
I had agreed to that.
He stood beside the front steps, hands in his coat pockets.
No entourage.
No assistants.
Just him.
Alessandro stopped beside me.
“You want me with you?”
I considered it.
“Yes.”
We approached together.
Marco looked at Alessandro.
“Moretti.”
“Bellini.”
I sighed.
“You two are exhausting.”
Both men looked at me.
Then, unexpectedly, Marco smiled.
Alessandro almost did.
Inside, dust sheets covered furniture.
The house had not been used regularly for years.
Yet traces of the women remained.
A piano in the sitting room.
Old sheet music.
Books with Sofia’s name written inside.
A photograph of four friends on a shelf.
Nobody had removed it.
We found the cedar chest in an upstairs study.
Locked.
Marco looked at Alessandro.
Alessandro looked at Marco.
Neither had a key.
I stared at them.
“All that money between two families and neither of you brought a locksmith?”
Ethan, standing behind us, quietly lifted a small tool kit.
“I did.”
I looked at him.
“Of course you did.”
The lock was old and opened easily.
Inside were property papers, photographs, music programs, and several sealed envelopes.
At the bottom lay a folder.
Lake House Foundation.
My hands trembled slightly as I opened it.
There was the amendment.
Signed.
Notarized.
Valid.
The property was indeed intended to become a charitable family foundation after the deaths of its original owners.
Its purpose was described in clear language.
Music education.
Scholarships.
Community arts programs.
Retreats for families supported by partner charities.
I looked at Marco.
“This is what they wanted.”
“Yes.”
Alessandro read the final page.
Then stopped.
“What?”
I asked.
He handed it to me.
There was one additional provision.
Should the founding families remain unable or unwilling to jointly administer the foundation, stewardship shall pass to the first adult descendant of Mariana Bellini Miller, provided that person freely accepts.
I reread it.
Then again.
Marco whispered, “Grace.”
“No.”
The word left me immediately.
Nobody argued.
I looked between them.
“I don’t run foundations.”
“You don’t have to,” Alessandro said.
“I clean houses.”
“You manage six people every Thursday because Mrs. Alvarez trusts you with the west wing schedule.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
He remained calm.
“But the document doesn’t say you must personally run every program.”
Marco nodded.
“It gives you stewardship. You can appoint professionals.”
I stepped away.
“This is exactly what my mother spent her life avoiding.”
Money.
Names.
Expectations.
People telling her what she should become.
“I’m not going to suddenly become some Bellini heiress because everyone discovered a piece of paper.”
Marco’s face softened.
“Good.”
I looked at him.
“Good?”
“Yes.”
He gestured toward the amendment.
“Your mother didn’t write that to make you a Bellini.”
He smiled sadly.
“She wrote it because she trusted you to remain Grace.”
That silenced me.
I walked downstairs alone.
The piano stood near the windows.
I pressed one key.
Middle C rang softly through the empty house.
My mother had taught me there was always somewhere to begin.
One note.
One decision.
One honest answer.
Alessandro entered but stayed by the doorway.
“You don’t have to accept.”
“I know.”
“You also don’t have to decide today.”
“I know.”
“You can refuse completely.”
I turned.
“You’re unusually supportive of me saying no to valuable things.”
His mouth shifted.
“I’m growing.”
I smiled.
Then I looked toward the lake.
“What would you do?”
“If I were you?”
“Yes.”
He thought carefully.
“I’d ask whether saying no was freedom or fear.”
The answer irritated me because it was useful.
I sat at the piano bench.
“What if I accept and become exactly what my mother ran from?”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you spent eleven months living in my house and never once treated my money like it made me more important.”
His voice softened.
“Sometimes you treat it like evidence of poor judgment.”
“Your six-thousand-dollar coffee machine is ridiculous.”
“It makes excellent coffee.”
“It needs its own instruction manual.”
He came closer.
“Grace.”
I looked at him.
“Whatever name is written in your family records, it doesn’t get to replace you.”
My throat tightened.
“And what happens between us?”
The question surprised both of us.
Alessandro’s face changed.
“Is there an us?”
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“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I.”
