Chapter 6
I went to the old estate that night.
Antonio stayed at the hospital with Emma.
Linda stayed with her too.
Margaret came with me because I wanted to watch her enter the room she built for my son.
The nursery was upstairs.
My old bedroom had been beside it when I was a child.
That was not accidental.
The room was beautiful.
Expensive.
Cold.
A carved crib stood beneath the Moretti crest.
My father’s portrait hung on one wall.
My childhood photograph on another.
A silver frame waited beside the crib.
Empty.
“For the baby,” Margaret said.
I looked around.
“Where is Emma?”
Margaret said nothing.
Exactly.
Inside the wardrobe were newborn clothes embroidered with the Moretti initials.
No clothes Emma chose.
No blankets Linda bought.
Nothing connected to the Parker family.
My mother had curated my son before he breathed.
Then I noticed an envelope in the drawer.
My name.
I opened it.
One sentence.
WHEN YOU’RE READY TO HEAR THE TRUTH ABOUT EMMA, OPEN THE BLUE BOX.
There was a blue box beneath the crib.
I looked at Margaret.
“You wrote this?”
“Yes.”
I opened it.
Photographs.
Emma having lunch with a man.
Emma entering a hotel lobby.
Emma hugging him.
I stared.
Margaret watched me carefully.
“That man is Peter Hale.”
I knew the name.
An accountant who worked for one of Linda’s catering suppliers.
My mother said he and Emma had been meeting secretly during the pregnancy.
I looked at the photographs again.
Dates.
Times.
Angles.
Designed to imply intimacy.
Then I noticed something.
Linda was visible in the reflection of one hotel window.
Almost hidden.
I looked at Margaret.
“You cropped these.”
Her expression changed.
The original photograph had included Linda.
This was not evidence of an affair.
It was evidence of editing.
“What were they meeting about?”
Margaret stayed silent.
Then a voice came from the doorway.
Linda.
She had followed.
“My husband’s memorial fundraiser.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Emma had been helping her mother organize an event for her late father.
Peter handled the venue.
My mother turned grief into adultery because she needed a backup lie.
Pigment if necessary.
May you like
Photographs if necessary.
Whatever separated me from Emma first.
