Chapter 6
She opened it eventually, but she did not step aside.
“We’re closed.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I need your help,” Vincent said. “And because I’m not good at asking.”
Emily looked at him for a long moment.
Then she sighed and held the door open.
They sat in the booth by the window.
Emily did not offer him coffee.
Vincent told her about the report, the hearing, the ten days.
He told her about the drawing—the house with no windows, the lighthouse, the woman with a ponytail.
Emily’s face did not change, but her hands did. She folded them on the table and held them still.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“I want you to come to the hearing. To tell them what you’ve seen.”
“I’m a waitress.”
“You’re the only person he’s smiled at in two years.”
Emily was quiet. Then she said, “You hurt me. What you said—about the money, about me not knowing him. That was cruel.”
“I know.”
“And you did it because I was right.”
Vincent looked at the table. “Yes.”
“Then say it.”
“I was wrong.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
He met her eyes. “I was wrong, and I was afraid, and I tried to buy something that isn’t for sale. I’m sorry.”
Emily studied him. Then she nodded, once. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay, I’ll come.” She stood. “But not because you’re sorry. Because that boy deserves someone in that room who isn’t fighting over him.”
The next ten days were the longest of Vincent’s life.
He tried to do everything right. He took Luca to a park, where two of Tony’s men stood at the edge of the playground and a mother with a stroller stared at them until she left.
He took Luca to a museum, where Luca stood in front of a painting of a ship for twenty minutes and did not speak.
He arranged a cooking class for children, and Luca sat at the table with his hands in his lap while the other kids cracked eggs and laughed.
Each night, Vincent sat outside Luca’s door and talked to him through the wood.
He talked about Catherine.
He talked about the tomato plants.
He talked about the day Luca was born, how Vincent had held him in the hospital hallway and been so afraid of dropping him that he had not moved for an hour.
Luca never answered. But sometimes Vincent heard him breathing on the other side of the door, and that was enough.
On the eighth day, Diane called.
“I’m not going to withdraw,” she said. “I want you to understand that.”
“I understand.”
“Do you? Because you keep acting like this is a negotiation. It isn’t. I’m not trying to take him from you, Vincent. I’m trying to give him a life.”
“He has a life.”
“He has a house. He has a guard. He has a father who loves him and can’t look at him without seeing his mother’s death.” Diane’s voice cracked. “Do you think I don’t see it? Do you think I don’t know what that does to a child?”
Vincent gripped the phone. “You don’t get to lecture me about grief.”
“No. I get to live with it. Just like you.”
“You already lost her,” Vincent said, and his voice was low and terrible. “You don’t get to take him too.”
The line went silent.
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to prevent,” Diane said finally. “And you just proved my point.”
She hung up.
Vincent stood in the study with the phone in his hand.
He did not hear the door behind him open.
He did not hear the small footsteps on the stairs.
He did not know that Luca had been standing in the hallway, listening.
That night, at 9:40, the service gate on the east side of the property opened for eleven seconds.
The camera caught a small figure in a coat and pajama bottoms slipping through.
By the time Tony saw the footage, the boy was gone.
Vincent was in the car before Tony finished the sentence.
The rain had started—a cold, driving November rain that turned the roads to mirrors.
They drove the route to Rosy’s twice.
They checked the park, the gas station, the strip mall.
Tony called the local police. Maria stayed at the house in case Luca came back.
At 10:20, Vincent went into Luca’s room.
The coloring book was open on the bed, the lighthouse page turned toward the door.
On the back page, in green crayon, Luca had drawn the diner.
A woman with a ponytail stood behind a counter. A small figure sat in a booth. Above them, in shaky letters, he had written one word:
HOME.
Vincent’s hands were shaking when he called Emily. She answered on the second ring.
“Vincent?”
“Is he there?”
“What?”
“Is Luca there?”
A pause. Then Emily’s voice, sharp with alarm: “No. Why would he—Vincent, what happened?”
“He’s gone. He ran.”
“Oh God.”
“If he comes there, call me. Please.”
“Of course. Vincent—what do you mean he ran?”
But Vincent had already hung up.
At 10:47, Emily was closing the diner. She had stayed late to inventory the freezer, and the rain had kept the customers away.
She was stacking chairs when she heard the knocking at the back door.
Three soft thumps. Then nothing.
She froze. The alley behind the diner was not a place where people knocked politely.
She walked to the door and looked through the small window.
A boy stood in the rain. He was soaked through, his hair plastered to his forehead, his coat dark with water. He was holding a green crayon in one fist.
Emily unlocked the door and pulled it open.
“Luca.”
He looked up at her. His lips were blue. His eyes were enormous.
She knelt in the doorway, rain blowing in around her, and held out her hand.
May you like
“Oh, honey,” she said. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
He took a step toward her. Then another. Then he was in her arms, and she was holding him, and the rain was coming down, and neither of them said anything at all.
