Chapter 4 - THE SISTER VINCENT LOST
Sofia lived forty minutes away.
Not in hiding.
That was the first thing Vincent had trouble accepting.
She lived above a small neighborhood bookstore outside Philadelphia with green awnings and children’s paintings taped inside the front windows.
There were pumpkins on the steps.
A bicycle leaned against the brick wall.
No guards.
No gate.
No locked iron fence.
Just a porch light.
Vincent stared through the windshield.
“She’s been here?”
Camille nodded.
“For three years.”
“And before that?”
“Baltimore.”
Vincent looked at her.
“You visited?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“Enough.”
The answer nearly started another argument.
I interrupted before it could.
“You promised no orders.”
Vincent looked at me.
Then opened the car door.
I still wasn’t sure why I was there.
Dad had answered that before we left.
He had touched my hand and said, “Finish... repair.”
I knew he hadn’t meant the pearls.
Camille climbed the stairs first.
She knocked.
A light came on upstairs.
Footsteps.
Then the door opened.
Sofia Marino looked older than the photograph.
Of course she did.
Six years older.
Her hair was shorter.
There were faint lines beside her eyes.
She wore jeans, socks, and a blue cardigan.
She looked at Camille first.
Then she saw Vincent.
Her face changed completely.
Not fear.
Not happiness.
Recognition mixed with six years of practiced distance.
“No.”
Vincent said nothing.
Sofia started closing the door.
Camille put one hand against it.
“Please.”
“You promised.”
“I know.”
“You promised me.”
“I found the necklace.”
Sofia froze.
Camille lowered her voice.
“He knows.”
For several seconds, Sofia stared at her.
Then a child’s voice came from upstairs.
“Mom?”
Sofia closed her eyes.
“Stay up there, Ben.”
Small feet appeared anyway.
A boy stood halfway down the staircase wearing dinosaur pajamas.
Dark hair.
Brown eyes.
Vincent’s eyes.
He held a stuffed dog by one leg.
He looked at Camille.
“Hi, Cam.”
“Hi, sweetheart.”
Then he noticed Vincent.
The boy tilted his head.
I watched Vincent stop breathing.
Ben looked at his mother.
Then back at Vincent.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Is that Uncle Vin?”
Vincent turned his face away for one second.
Only one.
When he looked back, his expression was controlled again.
But his eyes weren’t.
Sofia sighed.
“Come down.”
Ben came slowly.
Vincent crouched.
He didn’t touch him.
“Hi, Benjamin.”
“Ben.”
“Ben.”
The boy looked at Vincent’s suit.
“You look like the picture.”
“What picture?”
“Mom has one.”
Sofia gave her son a look.
Ben shrugged.
“Sorry.”
Vincent almost smiled.
“It’s okay.”
Ben held up the stuffed dog.
“This is Murphy.”
Vincent nodded seriously.
“Good to meet him.”
That was apparently enough.
Ben wandered toward the kitchen.
“I want cereal.”
Sofia called, “Small bowl.”
“Okay.”
Then she looked at Vincent.
“Five minutes.”
He nodded.
We entered.
The apartment smelled like books, laundry detergent, and cinnamon.
Family photographs covered one wall.
Ben at the beach.
Ben asleep on Sofia’s shoulder.
Ben with a man whose face appeared less often as the child grew older.
Vincent stopped at one.
“His father?”
Sofia nodded.
“Aaron.”
“Where is he?”
“He died three years ago.”
Vincent looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
There was no anger in her answer.
That was almost worse.
Camille removed the real necklace from her purse.
Sofia’s eyes filled immediately.
“Mom’s.”
“Yes.”
Vincent said, “It has your name in the clasp.”
“I know.”
“You knew?”
“Mom showed me.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“Then why did you let me believe you stole it?”
Sofia stared at him.
“Let you?”
Her voice remained calm.
“You accused me before Mom was even buried.”
“I found the box empty.”
“You found an empty box and decided what it meant.”
“You disappeared.”
“You told me if I walked away from the engagement Dad arranged, I was walking away from the family.”
Vincent’s expression changed.
“I was angry.”
“You were twenty-nine years old, Vincent. Not twelve.”
He said nothing.
Sofia continued.
“You told me family came before what I wanted. You told me I was embarrassing Mom. You told me Aaron would never be accepted.”
Vincent looked toward Ben in the kitchen.
“I didn’t know you were pregnant.”
“That shouldn’t have been necessary.”
The sentence landed quietly.
Hard.
“You shouldn’t need a baby to justify treating your sister like she belongs to herself.”
Vincent looked down.
Sofia’s voice softened.
“Mom understood.”
“She helped you leave.”
“Yes.”
“With Elena.”
“And Carlo.”
Camille’s father.
Vincent looked at Camille.
“Your father too?”
Camille nodded.
“He drove Sofia to the train station.”
Vincent laughed once.
No humor.
“My entire family helped my sister disappear from me.”
Sofia shook her head.
“No.”
Vincent looked at her.
“Mom helped me leave Dad’s plan.”
She paused.
“You made the distance permanent.”
Nobody spoke.
Ben came back carrying a blue cereal bowl.
On his wrist was a thin silver bracelet.
Something small caught the light.
A pearl.
Not white.
Cream-colored.
Slightly darker than the rest of Teresa’s strand.
My heart jumped.
“Ben.”
He looked at me.
“Can I see your bracelet?”
He pulled his arm against his chest.
“Why?”
Sofia smiled faintly.
“It’s okay.”
Ben held out his hand.
The pearl had been mounted between two tiny silver caps.
Inside the bracelet was a stamp.
A little star.
Grandpa used that mark on children’s pieces because his full initials took too much space.
I looked at Sofia.
“My grandfather made this.”
She nodded.
“Your grandfather was very kind to Mom.”
Vincent stared at the single pearl.
“The one missing from the necklace.”
Sofia touched her son’s hair.
“Mom said every child should carry one piece of where they came from.”
Ben looked at Vincent.
“Grandma gave it to me?”
“Before you were born,” Sofia said.
Ben considered that.
“That’s weird.”
I smiled.
“A little.”
Vincent laughed softly.
The first real laugh I had heard from him.
Then Sofia’s eyes moved to Camille.
The warmth vanished.
“There’s something you haven’t told him.”
Camille became very still.
Vincent noticed immediately.
“What?”
Sofia looked at her.
“Tell him how long you’ve had the necklace.”
Camille said nothing.
“You told him three weeks, didn’t you?”
Vincent turned slowly.
“Camille?”
She swallowed.
Sofia’s face tightened.
“You found Mom’s pearls before last Christmas.”
Vincent stared at his fiancée.
“That was nine months ago.”
“Yes.”
“You had the real necklace for nine months?”
Camille nodded.
Sofia folded her arms.
May you like
“Now tell him why you waited.”
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