Chapter 2
Laura knew about some of Margaret’s behavior.
Not all of it.
That became clear the next morning.
They sat in Vincent’s private study while Emma colored at a small table in the adjoining room.
David was at school.
Laura looked exhausted.
“She’s made comments before.”
“What comments?”
“That adoption is charity.”
Vincent’s expression hardened.
“That Emma should be grateful we gave her our name.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Laura laughed once without humor.
“Because every time Margaret says something ugly, somebody tells me she’s sixty-eight and from another generation.”
Vincent remembered saying something very similar six months earlier.
He did not defend himself.
Laura continued.
Margaret had excluded Emma from a family photograph at Christmas.
She had given David a personalized Moretti watch while giving Emma a generic stuffed animal.
At Easter, she told a housekeeper that “blood grandchildren” should be served first.
Laura confronted her each time.
Margaret always backed down just enough to avoid a larger fight.
“And I kept thinking,” Laura said, “if I drew a clear enough line, she’d eventually understand it.”
Vincent looked toward Emma.
“She understood.”
Laura looked at him.
“She just didn’t care.”
That was worse.
Vincent interviewed staff.
One banquet server remembered Margaret changing the seating cards before dinner.
Originally, Laura had been seated between both children.
Margaret moved David beside Vincent.
Emma remained beside David.
“Why?” Vincent asked.
The server shook her head.
“Mrs. Moretti said Mr. David was old enough to sit with the senior family.”
Vincent disliked that phrase.
Senior family.
David was sixteen.
He was a high-school junior who still left empty cereal bowls beside the sink despite being asked a hundred times not to.
He was not a capo.
He was not an executive.
He was not anything that required placement beside Vincent at a Mafia-family banquet.
Another employee remembered Margaret insisting that David’s chair not be moved under any circumstances.
Even if Laura changed tables.
Vincent asked why.
“She said, ‘David stays where he belongs.’”
The words sounded different now.
That evening Vincent asked Laura whether Margaret had recently shown unusual interest in David.
Laura gave him a tired look.
“You mean besides inviting him to lunches without me?”
May you like
Vincent went still.
“What lunches?”
