Chapter 5 - THE TWO SISTERS
Victoria stared at the silver star for so long that Dominic finally touched her shoulder.
She flinched.
Not from him.
From whatever memory had opened.
“My mother always said Eleanor was three years older.”
I examined the necklace.
The engraved dates were identical.
April 8, 1948.
Two stars.
Two initials.
E.M.
A.M.
“Who was A.M.?” I asked.
“Adelaide Moretti.”
Victoria's mother.
Dominic looked through the ledger.
“If they were twins, why lie?”
Victoria shook her head.
“I don't know.”
The storage manager hovered near the doorway.
Dominic closed the box.
“We’re leaving.”
This time, I didn't argue.
Not because he had suddenly become my boss.
Because a fluorescent storage office was not the place to dismantle three generations of family history.
We returned to a private room upstairs at Maison Étoile after closing.
The same restaurant where Victoria had called me an illiterate servant now contained four people silently studying a seventy-year-old ledger while employees polished glasses downstairs.
Life had a sense of humor.
The register confirmed that Salvatore Moretti had received custodial control of the disputed European holdings in 1971.
But not ownership.
The beneficial rights were assigned equally to his two daughters.
Eleanor and Adelaide.
Then something changed in 1986.
A handwritten amendment shifted Adelaide's half to Eleanor.
Victoria pointed.
“This makes no sense.”
Dominic read the notation.
“Penalty for material concealment.”
“What concealment?”
I turned the page.
A reference number appeared beside the amendment.
R-17.
No explanation.
Victoria stood.
“I need a drink.”
Dominic caught her wrist gently.
“No.”
She stared at him.
He released her immediately.
“You need answers.”
She looked angry.
Then nodded.
Marriage in one movement.
Messy.
Familiar.
Still alive.
I studied the ledger.
“The amendment was witnessed by Samuel.”
“My grandfather.”
“And Arthur.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“There he is again.”
Victoria looked toward the locked door.
“Arthur knew my mother lost her claim.”
“Yes.”
“But he let Dominic purchase her supposed share decades later.”
I nodded.
Dominic looked at Victoria.
“What exactly did your mother leave you?”
“Her interest in the Belluno properties.”
“An interest she apparently did not possess.”
Victoria sank into a chair.
For years, part of her identity had rested on an inheritance that may never have belonged to her.
I understood something then.
When she had insulted me, she had thought I was beneath her.
Hours later, she was discovering the social ladder she trusted might have been resting on stolen wood.
I did not feel sorry for her.
But I understood why she looked frightened.
Dominic turned to me.
“The ledger names you.”
“Before I existed.”
“How?”
I had been asking myself the same thing.
Then I noticed the ink.
Most entries were faded black.
My name was blue.
Newer.
I touched the page.
“This was added later.”
“By whom?”
The handwriting looked familiar.
Not because I had seen it in the register.
Because I had received birthday cards in it for twenty-six years.
“My mother.”
Victoria stared.
“Mary wrote your name there?”
“Yes.”
“So she had this ledger after you were born.”
I called her again.
Mary answered almost immediately.
“You found it.”
“You knew we would.”
“Eventually.”
“Mom, my name is in the register.”
Silence.
“You wrote it.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“On your second birthday.”
Dominic leaned against the table.
“Then you had the ledger in 1999.”
“Yes.”
“After Samuel died.”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“Mom, why send it back to a locker?”
“Because our house had been searched.”
My chest tightened.
“By Arthur?”
“I never proved it.”
“But you suspected him.”
“Yes.”
Victoria spoke.
“Mary, what is R-17?”
My mother went silent.
“Mary.”
“I hoped you would never learn that.”
Victoria's face hardened.
“My mother lost half her inheritance over it.”
“No.”
“What do you mean no?”
“She lost it because your grandfather discovered what she had done.”
Victoria gripped the table.
“What did she do?”
Mary’s voice became quiet.
“She told Salvatore where Eleanor was hiding.”
Nobody moved.
Victoria looked as if she had been slapped.
“No.”
“Adelaide was seventeen when your grandfather first used her to track Eleanor.”
“They were twins.”
“Yes.”
“Why would she betray her?”
“Because Salvatore told Adelaide that Eleanor planned to take everything.”
Victoria looked at me.
The lie had survived into the next generation.
Mary continued.
“Adelaide believed she was protecting her family.”
“And my grandfather punished her anyway?”
“Because her information almost got Samuel killed.”
Victoria sat.
I could practically see her rebuilding her mother in her head.
Not victim.
Not villain.
Both.
Dominic spoke.
“What is the larger secret?”
Mary hesitated.
“Casey.”
“I’m here.”
“The Belluno properties were never what Arthur truly cared about.”
“Then what?”
“The ownership register contains an appendix.”
I searched the ledger.
No appendix.
“It isn't here.”
“I know.”
“Where is it?”
“With Eleanor.”
I felt irritation rise.
“Eleanor disappeared almost forty years ago.”
“I know.”
“Then how does that help us?”
My mother began to cry softly.
“Because Eleanor didn't disappear in 1987.”
Victoria stood.
“What?”
Mary continued.
“She returned to New York in 1994.”
Dominic’s face sharpened.
“Where did she go?”
“To see Teresa Russo.”
His mother.
“Why?”
“To give her the appendix.”
Dominic stared at the table.
“My mother died in 1996.”
“I know.”
“Did Arthur know she had it?”
“Yes.”
I heard the danger in that single word.
Dominic heard it too.
His voice lowered.
“How did my mother die?”
Victoria looked at him sharply.
Everyone knew the official story.
Car accident.
Rain.
Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
Dominic was twelve.
Mary said nothing.
“Mary.”
“I don't know that Arthur killed her.”
“But?”
“She told Eleanor two days before the crash that Arthur had discovered the appendix was in her possession.”
The room went still.
Dominic walked toward the window.
For the first time, I saw something underneath the mafia boss.
A boy.
Twelve years old.
Still waiting for someone to explain why his mother never came home.
Victoria approached him but stopped before touching him.
He noticed.
Then reached for her hand himself.
That was the first time that night I believed their marriage might be more than strategy.
I looked at my mother’s number on the screen.
“Where is Eleanor now?”
Another silence.
“She died in 2007.”
My throat tightened.
“Did you know her?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Ten years.”
“You let me grow up knowing my grandmother while telling me she was someone else?”
“No.”
Mary's voice broke.
“You knew her as Aunt Ellie.”
I stopped breathing.
A small woman with white hair.
Peppermint candies in her handbag.
A laugh that filled our tiny Ohio kitchen.
Aunt Ellie.
She had taught me my first Italian phrase.
Bought me dictionaries.
Given me books in French.
She died when I was ten.
I sat down.
“She was my grandmother.”
“Yes.”
The betrayal was strange because it carried love inside it.
I remembered Aunt Ellie holding my face between her hands.
Words matter, Casey. Learn enough of them and nobody can lie to you cheaply.
She had known exactly what she was giving me.
I looked at the fountain pen.
“Did she leave the appendix?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“She wouldn't tell me.”
“Why?”
“Because she said only Teresa Russo understood what it meant.”
Dominic turned from the window.
“My mother.”
“Yes.”
Mary inhaled.
“There is one thing Eleanor gave me after Teresa died.”
“What?”
“A photograph.”
“Blue?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“A Polaroid of Teresa standing outside a church in Brooklyn.”
Dominic frowned.
“Which church?”
“St. Michael’s.”
Victoria looked at him.
He understood something.
“My mother wore a rosary from St. Michael’s every day.”
Mary whispered, “Eleanor said Teresa hid the appendix with the one person Arthur would never search.”
“Who?”
“A priest?”
“No.”
Mary's next words turned Dominic’s face to stone.
May you like
“Your father.”
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