Chapter 3 - THE FATHER SHE DIDN’T REMEMBER
Gemma dropped the photograph.
It landed faceup on the carpet.
Nobody picked it up.
“No.”
Her voice came out flat.
Anna stood.
“Gemma.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“You told me my father left before I was born.”
Anna’s eyes filled.
“Your biological father did.”
The word biological hit harder than Gemma expected.
She looked at Leo.
“So he’s not my father.”
“No,” Anna said.
Leo said nothing.
Gemma pointed at him.
“Then why did I call him Dad?”
Anna sank back onto the couch.
“Because he was going to adopt you.”
Gemma laughed.
Nothing about it was funny.
“You were going to marry him.”
“Yes.”
“And he was going to adopt me.”
“Yes.”
“And then Uncle Danny disappeared, you decided Leo killed him, and you ran.”
Anna nodded.
“That’s the short version.”
“Twenty-one years is a pretty long short version.”
Leo picked up the photograph.
His thumb touched the corner carefully.
Gemma saw grief in his face.
For her.
That frightened her more than anger.
“How old was I?”
“Almost two,” Leo said.
“You remember me?”
“Yes.”
“What did I like?”
Anna looked at him.
He answered without thinking.
“Bananas cut sideways, never lengthwise.”
Gemma froze.
Her mother had always cut bananas into little coins.
“You hated socks.”
Anna closed her eyes.
“You called dogs ‘bo-bos.’”
Gemma’s eyes filled despite herself.
Leo continued.
“You had a yellow stuffed rabbit missing one ear.”
Gemma looked at her mother.
Anna whispered, “Mr. Bun.”
Gemma still had it.
In a plastic box under her bed.
She had never known where it came from.
Leo gave a broken smile.
“I bought it at a gas station outside Indianapolis because you screamed for forty miles.”
Gemma turned away.
Too much.
Her childhood had suddenly developed another room she had never been allowed to enter.
“Who was my real father?”
Anna’s face changed.
Gemma noticed.
“You know.”
“Yes.”
“Name.”
“Michael Hayes.”
“Hayes.”
“Yes.”
“So that part was real.”
“He died when you were three months old.”
“How?”
“Construction accident.”
Leo looked at Anna sharply.
“You told me he left.”
“I told everyone he left.”
“Why?”
Anna rubbed her hands together.
“Because Michael worked for Vincent.”
Silence.
Gemma turned.
“What did he do?”
“Driving. Deliveries. Things he didn’t ask enough questions about.”
“Was he mafia?”
“No.”
Leo answered.
“He was useful.”
Anna flinched.
Leo corrected himself.
“He was a young man Vincent used.”
Gemma hated how believable that sounded.
“Michael wanted out after I was born?”
Anna nodded.
“He was twenty-four. Scared. He told me he’d seen things.”
“Women?”
Anna looked toward Leo.
“Yes.”
“He was going to talk?”
“He tried.”
Gemma understood before anyone said it.
“His accident.”
Anna closed her eyes.
“I never knew if it was an accident.”
Leo’s jaw tightened.
“I didn’t know any of this.”
Anna looked at him.
“I know.”
“You should have told me.”
“I was nineteen when I met Michael. Twenty-one when he died. I had a baby, no money and a brother who kept telling me to stay away from the DeLucas.”
“And then you met me.”
“Eight months later.”
Leo stared at the floor.
He had loved her without knowing the beginning of the story.
Or maybe he had known pieces and told himself pieces were enough.
Gemma went to the window.
Downstairs, Arthur stood beneath the awning across the street.
Not looking up.
Giving them privacy.
She hated noticing that.
It made the dangerous men harder to classify.
“Why did you move so much?” she asked.
Anna answered.
“Because three weeks after I left Chicago, someone found us in Indiana.”
Leo looked up.
“Who?”
“I never knew.”
“What happened?”
“They searched the motel room while I was at work.”
“For what?”
Anna looked at the ring.
“Danny’s things.”
Gemma turned.
“You had Uncle Danny’s stuff?”
“One duffel bag.”
“What was inside?”
“Clothes. His watch. A coat. Some photographs.”
“The evidence?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“I searched everything.”
Leo stood.
“Where is the coat?”
Anna’s face went still.
Gemma noticed.
“Mom.”
Anna hesitated.
Then walked to the bedroom closet.
She removed an old brown wool coat wrapped in a garment bag.
The sleeves were frayed.
One button was missing.
“I couldn’t throw it away.”
Leo touched the fabric.
“Danny wore this all the time.”
Anna nodded.
Gemma reached into one pocket.
Nothing.
Another.
Receipts so old the ink had faded.
A bus ticket.
A broken comb.
Then her fingers found something sewn into the lining.
“What’s this?”
Anna turned sharply.
Gemma felt a rigid rectangle between two layers of wool.
Leo moved closer.
“Don’t tear it.”
Gemma grabbed scissors from the kitchen drawer.
She cut three stitches.
A photograph slid out.
Not one photograph.
Four.
The first showed Vincent DeLuca outside a nightclub.
The second showed a white delivery van.
The third showed two young women being helped through a side door by a man Gemma didn’t recognize.
The fourth showed Michael Hayes.
Her father.
Standing beside Vincent.
On the back, Danny had written:
MIKE TRIED TO GET THEM OUT. VINCENT FOUND OUT.
Gemma’s knees weakened.
Anna caught her.
“No.”
Gemma stared at the photograph.
Her father had not simply died near Vincent’s world.
He had tried to help someone escape it.
Leo read the writing twice.
“He wasn’t part of it.”
Anna started crying.
“I told you.”
“No.”
Leo looked at her.
“You told me he worked for Vincent. You never told me he tried to stop him.”
“I didn’t know.”
The coat had carried the truth for twenty-two years.
Gemma looked at Leo.
“Vincent killed my father.”
“We don’t know that.”
“You think he did.”
Leo did not lie.
“Yes.”
Anna sat down heavily.
“And Danny discovered it.”
“Yes.”
“And Danny disappeared.”
Leo nodded.
Gemma’s anger sharpened.
“What happened to Vincent?”
Leo’s expression changed.
“He’s alive.”
Gemma stared.
“Where?”
“He lives outside Chicago.”
“You still see him?”
A long pause.
“Every Sunday.”
Gemma stepped back.
“You sit at a table with him?”
“He raised me after my father died.”
“You knew he might have killed Danny.”
“I suspected.”
“You knew he might have killed my father?”
“No.”
“But you suspected he was dirty.”
“Yes.”
“And you still kept him close.”
Leo did not defend himself.
That made it worse.
Gemma pointed toward the door.
“Get out.”
Anna whispered, “Gemma.”
“No.”
Leo stood.
She expected a threat.
An order.
Instead he placed the old photograph carefully on the table.
“You have every right.”
Then he walked toward the door.
Gemma spoke before he reached it.
“If he killed them, and you protected him, then you’re not different.”
Leo stopped.
His back remained toward her.
“I know.”
Then Anna said one sentence that stopped everyone.
“Vincent didn’t come to my motel looking for Danny’s photographs.”
Leo turned.
Anna was staring at the emerald ring.
May you like
“He came looking for Gemma.”
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