Chapter 10 - THE ROOM BEHIND THE WALL
Maintenance removed the decorative panel.
Behind it stood an old white door.
My mother’s room.
The air smelled like dust and cedar.
Her chair remained beside the window.
A faded blue shawl lay over the back.
Her sewing basket sat beneath the table.
For one impossible second, I expected Maria to walk in and complain that nobody had opened the curtains.
Behind an old cabinet, Marcus found the terminal.
Still running.
The browser showed one photograph.
Thirty-five years old.
Maria stood outside our old apartment.
Beside her was Gabriel.
My father.
In front of them stood a five-year-old boy.
Me.
Beside me was a girl.
About seven.
Filename:
Maria_Gabriel_Luca_Elena_1986
“Elena?” Marcus asked.
“It can’t be my employee. The age is wrong.”
Then I saw the girl’s necklace.
Silver.
Oval.
The same pendant Elena Alvarez wore.
I called her.
“The necklace around your neck. Where did it come from?”
“My mother.”
“Her name?”
Silence.
Then:
“Elena Maria Alvarez.”
“Your mother had your name?”
“Yes.”
“Did she know Maria Moretti?”
The line went completely silent.
Finally Elena whispered:
“Where did you hear that name?”
Her mother had kept a box.
Letters.
Photographs.
Things she never explained.
“She used to say Maria Moretti saved my life.”
“When?”
“Before I was born.”
Nothing made sense.
Then Marcus found another file.
Emergency Family Register.
Catherine Harland.
Maria Moretti.
Gabriel Moretti.
And:
Elena Maria Alvarez — dependent child.
Beside it, my mother had written:
Family connection not to be disclosed without Gabriel’s permission.
A second note had been added years later.
If Luca ever meets Elena’s daughter, tell him the truth before Gabriel does.
My pulse pounded.
Elena’s daughter.
Nora.
Someone had known years earlier that this child might someday matter to me.
Footsteps approached.
Elena appeared carrying an old wooden box.
Inside was an envelope.
FOR LUCA MORETTI.
The handwriting wasn’t Maria’s.
I recognized it from childhood birthday cards.
My father.
I opened it.
May you like
If Maria kept her promise, you do not know I am alive.
And suddenly, the father I had mourned for thirty years began speaking to me from a piece of paper.
