Chapter 2
Cesare took Avice home before asking another question.
He did not want his granddaughter sitting in a room while adults fought over whether she had seen what she had seen.
The following morning, Avice sat at Cesare’s kitchen table making another paper sea turtle.
The first one had been too badly crushed to repair.
Cesare watched her cut crooked flippers from green construction paper.
“Sweetheart, do you remember when you saw Vanessa without the belly?”
Avice nodded.
“At the fish museum.”
“Once?”
She held up three fingers.
Cesare remained still.
“What happened?”
“Vanessa gets hot.”
Avice explained in the blunt language of a four-year-old.
Sometimes Vanessa went into the private cloakroom.
Sometimes the “baby tummy” came off.
Avice had wandered in once looking for Julian.
Vanessa caught her.
“What did she tell you?”
Avice kept coloring.
“That I make trouble.”
“Anything else?”
“She said when baby comes, Daddy won’t need me so much.”
Cesare’s expression hardened.
Avice continued:
“She said babies are real family.”
That explained the orphanage remark at the gala.
It had not been spontaneous cruelty.
Vanessa had been feeding the child the same message for weeks.
Cesare called Julian.
His son answered immediately.
“I need to see Avice.”
“Not yet.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“Yes.”
Cesare looked toward Avice.
“And right now she doesn’t want to see you.”
A long silence followed.
Julian finally asked:
“What has she said?”
Cesare did not tell him.
Not because he wanted leverage.
Because he wanted to hear Julian’s version before giving him Avice’s.
“Tell me when you first knew something was wrong with Vanessa’s pregnancy.”
Julian answered too quickly.
“Last night.”
Cesare closed his eyes.
May you like
He had spent sixty-one years learning what fear sounded like.
His own son had just answered like a man afraid of the next question.
