Chapter 17
Six months later, Luca was big enough to grab my beard.
Hard.
Claire laughed the first time he did it.
I did not.
Then he did it again, and even I had to admit the boy had commitment.
We were in the nursery lounge, the same room where Grant once poured freezing water over his carrier.
The old swaddle cubby had been replaced.
The bottle cart repaired.
The Persian rug cleaned.
I considered changing the entire room after everything happened.
Claire told me not to.
“Then the room becomes theirs forever.”
She was right.
So we kept it.
Different memories had to be allowed to arrive.
Luca sat against my chest while I held the same framed photograph that had fallen beside Vanessa’s hotel key.
He reached toward it.
My father.
Grant.
Me.
I let him touch the glass.
“One day,” Claire said, “he’s going to ask who everyone is.”
“I know.”
“What will you tell him about Grant?”
I thought about it.
“The truth.”
“All of it?”
“When he’s old enough.”
No family mythology.
No monster story either.
Grant loved me once.
Maybe some part of him still did.
He also let resentment rot that love until my newborn son became useful as leverage.
Both could be true.
Luca grabbed the edge of the photograph.
I moved it away before he dropped it.
Then he started crying.
No obvious reason.
Hungry.
Tired.
Overwhelmed.
Being six months old.
Claire looked at me.
I picked him up immediately.
No hesitation.
No concern about who might see.
He settled against my shoulder after a minute.
That simple.
Months earlier, Grant and Vanessa believed they could control the Bellandi future by deciding when my son was allowed comfort.
They misunderstood both of us.
Luca never had to suffer to prove he belonged.
And I never had to ignore him to prove I could lead.
I looked toward the doorway where council waited somewhere beyond the nursery.
Then down at my son.
They could wait another minute.
May you like
He could not.
For once, nobody in my house confused that choice with weakness.
