Chapter 6 - The Woman He Intended to Marry
“Not to be disclosed to Luca Moretti.”
He read the instruction twice.
Then he looked at me.
“Claire, did Bianca know my mother could speak? That she understood what was happening?”
I remembered Bianca standing outside the window.
“Yes.”
Luca closed the folder.
His face was pale, but his anger was unmistakable.
“I need to hear her explain this.”
At sunrise, he arranged for Bianca to come to Willow Street.
I stayed with Margaret while Miriam helped Elena wash and dress.
Luca remained beside the kitchen window until a black sedan stopped outside.
Bianca stepped onto the porch wearing a beige coat over the red dress she'd worn to dinner.
Her hair was loose.
Her makeup had been washed away.
She looked exhausted.
When she entered, Luca placed the transfer folder on the kitchen table.
“Explain.”
Bianca stared at the page.
“Where did you get this?”
“My mother's nurse.”
She looked toward the hallway.
“Is Elena all right?”
“She's frightened because somebody intends to take her somewhere she doesn't want to go.”
Bianca lowered herself into a chair.
“I never wanted her frightened.”
“Then why did you sign it?”
She rubbed her forehead.
“Because my father said her care needed to be reorganized. He told me the house wasn't suitable anymore.”
“Did you know who she was?”
“Yes.”
Luca waited.
Bianca looked up.
“I found out three weeks ago.”
I remembered Margaret telling me she'd been dismissed three weeks earlier.
The timing wasn't an accident.
“That's when you decided Margaret had to leave,” I said.
Bianca looked at me.
“Yes.”
The admission surprised both of us.
She didn't try to dress it up.
“I knew Margaret could tell Luca. And I was afraid she would.”
“Why?” Luca asked.
Bianca's eyes filled.
“Because I thought if you knew, you'd never look at me the same way again.”
“You were right.”
She flinched.
Then she continued.
“My mother took care of Elena for years. She was more than a patient to her. They'd been friends before either of them married.”
“Then how could your family keep my mother hidden?”
Bianca looked at the blue curtains.
“My parents always told me Elena wanted privacy. They said your father was paying for everything because she couldn't manage on her own.”
“And you believed that?”
“I wanted to.”
Those three words hung between them.
Bianca explained that Carlo Romano had built his private-care company with financial help from Salvatore Moretti.
For years, the arrangement had provided steady work and expensive care for Elena.
But the company was now struggling.
Carlo wanted the house emptied and the patient moved somewhere cheaper.
“Your father knew my mother was living here?” Luca asked.
Bianca nodded.
“And your mother?”
“Yes.”
Luca slowly sat down.
For years, Bianca's mother, Celia, had attended Christmas dinners at the Moretti mansion.
She had offered Luca condolences on the anniversary of Elena's death.
She had watched him light candles beneath his mother's photograph.
And she had never told him the truth.
“Celia watched me grieve,” Luca whispered.
Bianca looked ashamed.
“She did.”
Margaret stood in the doorway.
“Your mother loved Elena.”
Bianca looked up.
“I know.”
“Then she should have helped her get home.”
Bianca began crying.
“I know that too.”
Luca looked at the transfer page again.
“Why did you instruct them not to tell me where she was going?”
Bianca took a long breath.
“Because I was selfish.”
She admitted that she'd believed she could move Elena before the wedding, persuade Margaret to leave the country, and keep the past buried.
Her father promised that Elena would receive good care.
Bianca had signed the authorization.
Then she'd visited Willow Street yesterday and seen the lock on Elena's door.
She'd heard Elena crying.
For the first time, she questioned what her family had told her.
“I asked Dad to cancel the transfer,” Bianca said. “He refused.”
“Did you tell him you'd signed something wrong?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“He said the decision wasn't mine anymore.”
Luca stared at her.
“You could have come to me.”
“I know.”
“You could have told me the moment you learned.”
“I know.”
His voice broke.
“Instead, you stood in my dining room and called the woman who raised me a servant.”
Bianca covered her face.
“I'm sorry.”
Margaret turned away.
Luca spoke quietly.
“Sorry doesn't undo what you did to her. Or Claire. Or my mother.”
Bianca lowered her hands.
“I know it doesn't.”
He removed the engagement ring he'd been wearing on a chain beneath his shirt and placed it on the table.
“Our wedding is postponed. I can't discuss anything else between us until my mother's safe.”
Bianca stared at the ring.
Then she nodded.
“I understand.”
She reached into her handbag.
“There is something I brought because you deserve to see it.”
It was a photograph.
The edges were slightly curled.
On the back, someone had written:
Luca's twenty-first birthday — 2011.
The photograph showed the entrance to a Chicago restaurant.
Young Luca stood beneath the awning, smiling beside several friends.
I recognized him immediately.
But it wasn't Luca who made my stomach tighten.
Near the far edge of the picture, partially hidden behind a parked sedan, sat a woman in a wheelchair.
She wore a pale-blue coat.
Her face was turned toward the restaurant entrance.
One hand rested against her heart.
It was Elena.
And standing beside her, holding the wheelchair's handles, was an older man with silver-streaked hair.
Luca stared at the photograph.
“No.”
He brought it closer to the window.
His hand began shaking again.
Because the man standing behind his mother was someone he knew better than almost anyone alive.
May you like
His father.
Salvatore Moretti had brought Elena to Luca's birthday celebration—and kept her close enough to see her son without allowing him to see her.
