Chapter 5
Luciano returned home before dinner.
Mabel was sitting on the nursery floor arranging plastic fencing figures in a row.
She looked up.
“Am I in trouble?”
Luciano stopped walking.
“No.”
“Aunt Odessa said I took her shiny thing.”
“She lied.”
Mabel considered that.
“Why?”
Luciano sat beside her.
“Because you found a paper she didn't want me to see.”
“Was I bad for taking paper?”
“You should've given it to an adult.”
Mabel’s face dropped.
Luciano corrected himself.
“But you were not bad. And nobody had the right to do what she did.”
Mabel moved one plastic figure.
Then whispered:
“Aunt Odessa says I tell Daddy too much.”
Luciano looked at her.
“When?”
“A lot.”
That bothered him.
Mabel described several small incidents.
Odessa telling her not to bother Luciano during meetings.
Odessa taking away a drawing because Mabel wanted to show him while donors were visiting.
Odessa telling her that “big girls don't run to Daddy every time.”
Each incident was minor by itself.
Together, they showed a pattern.
Odessa had spent months teaching Mabel that speaking to her father was inconvenient.
Luciano thought about his own schedule.
Perhaps Odessa found that easy because he had made it believable.
After Catherine died, Luciano worked longer.
He told himself Mabel was too young to notice.
Children noticed absence even when they did not understand it.
The next morning Luciano canceled three meetings and took Mabel to preschool himself.
She seemed confused.
“You coming inside?”
“Yes.”
“You busy.”
“I am.”
“Then why?”
Luciano opened the car door.
“Because busy isn't the same as unavailable.”
Mabel accepted that more easily than he did.
Meanwhile, Grant’s attorneys sent the foundation a formal explanation of the transfers.
The argument rested on one claim.
Grant insisted Luciano had approved the initial use of the youth fund.
Luciano read the sentence twice.
Then called his attorney.
“That’s false.”
“Probably.”
Luciano looked up.
“Probably?”
May you like
His attorney placed a document on the desk.
At the bottom was Luciano Moretti’s signature.
