Chapter 11
I did not ask Lucia to call me Daddy again.
That mattered.
She had said it once because the shape of the truth had finally become simple enough for her.
I would not turn it into a performance.
We returned to the café before evening.
Dominic sat without his family pin.
Gabriel sat across from him.
Two brothers who had spent years on opposite sides of the same father’s shadow.
I placed Enzo’s notes on the table.
Dominic looked at them.
“Happy?”
“No.”
That surprised him.
“You found your villain.”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“I found several.”
Enzo.
Dominic.
My own willingness to let one trusted man become the only doorway through which difficult truth reached me.
Dominic laughed.
“Careful. Accountability almost makes you sound wise.”
I ignored him.
Isabella sat beside Lucia.
My daughter was coloring on the back of a pastry box with café crayons.
Normal.
Impossible.
Beautiful.
I looked at Dominic.
“Why tear the photograph?”
He answered immediately.
“The card.”
“I know.”
“No.”
He looked toward Isabella.
“The photograph itself.”
I frowned.
He continued.
“Rosa was in the background.”
I picked up the torn halves again.
I had focused on Isabella’s pregnancy.
Dominic.
The hospital entrance.
But behind them, through the glass doors, a reflection showed my mother.
Watching.
She had been there.
Rosa had seen Isabella pregnant.
Before Lucia was born.
Before Dominic claimed my mother learned later.
I looked at Isabella.
“You knew?”
She shook her head.
Dominic smiled bitterly.
“Rosa followed me.”
Teresa closed her eyes.
I understood.
My mother had known the truth earlier than she admitted.
Another betrayal.
Smaller than Dominic’s.
Still real.
“She could have told me.”
Teresa answered.
“Yes.”
I looked at her.
“She chose to investigate first.”
Same family disease.
Protection through secrecy.
My mother had feared Dominic’s network enough to delay.
Then delay became months.
Months became three years.
Even the person trying to protect us had helped keep us apart.
Isabella looked at me carefully.
“You’re angry with her.”
“Yes.”
“She tried to help.”
“Yes.”
Both could be true.
That felt new.
Dominic watched me.
“You going to blame a dead woman too?”
“No.”
I looked at Rosa’s reflection.
“I’m going to stop turning people into saints just because someone worse stood beside them.”
Gabriel smiled faintly.
That irritated Dominic.
Good.
May you like
Because the story was finally becoming too complicated for him to control with one villain and one excuse.
And that was exactly how truth should feel.
