Chapter 19: What Luca Found
988 Words
Marco POV
Luca came in on Thursday and closed the door. He sat down and put the file on the desk. He did not open it right away. That meant the beginning was the part he was worried about.
"Castelmare," he said.
I knew the name. It was a small village on the coast of southern Sicily. I had never been there. I had no reason to go.
"She went there after she left Florence," Luca said. "She used a bus and paid cash so there was no name on the booking. She went to a clinic as soon as she arrived. The records say she was exhausted. She had no money and no friends." He paused. "She was about three months pregnant when she arrived."
I looked down at the desk. I thought about the cash in my pocket and the heaters in my house. While I was comfortable, she was sleeping on a bus to a place she didn't know.
"A family named Esposito took her in," he continued. "She stayed for eight months. A neighbor remembered her. She said Valentina worked in the house. Cooking, cleaning." He stopped for a second. "The neighbor used the word servant."
The room was very quiet.
"She gave birth at the Castelmare clinic," Luca said. "There was only one midwife working. There were no problems." He opened the file and turned it toward me. "It was a boy."
I looked at the birth record but did not touch it. Mother: Valentina Greco. Father: unknown.
"She left before the sun came up one morning," Luca said. "She took the little bit she had. The neighbor said the husband’s desk had been opened. Some cash was missing."
I nodded slowly. "She only took what she needed to survive," I said. My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else.
"She took enough for a train ticket," Luca added.
I was thinking about a gate. It was raining. A woman was standing there with a bag at her feet. She was saying words I did not want to hear: I am pregnant. It is yours. And I had looked at her stomach and said the one thing I could not take back. I had told a guard to close the gate.
I had known.
That was the difference. This wasn't a surprise. I had known she was pregnant. She had told me while standing in the rain, and I had called it a trap and sent her away. She had gone to Sicily and worked in a stranger’s house for eight months. She gave birth alone with one midwife and no one else. She put "unknown" where my name should have been.
All of it happened because of what I had said at that gate.
"How old?" I asked.
Luca told me. The number did not surprise me because the math was simple. I had already figured it out the moment I heard "three months pregnant." I knew exactly how old the boy was before Luca even finished.
I stood up and walked to the window. The street below was busy, but I felt completely isolated. I watched a man across the street lift a young boy onto his shoulders. I had to look away.
I had known. She told me the truth, and I had chosen to call her a liar. This wasn't a mistake made because I lacked information. I had all the information, and I had looked at her and chosen to believe she was lying. Now, there was a boy in Como with a different name. There was a birth record with a blank space. There were eight months where she was treated like a servant.
All of it because of one sentence I said five years ago.
"Marco," Luca said quietly.
"Stop the investigation," I said. "The personal side. All of it."
"What about the business?"
"That continues." I kept looking at the river. "Just not her. Not where she was, not the boy, not any of it. I don't have the right to follow her anymore."
He was quiet for a moment. "Alright."
"Luca."
"Yes?"
I stopped. I wanted to ask something, but I wasn't sure I had the right to know. "The Esposito family. Those eight months." I kept my voice flat. "Was anyone kind to her?"
The pause before he answered told me everything.
"The neighbor said she left before dawn," he said carefully. "She didn't tell anyone. This was after eight months of living there." He didn't say 'no,' but he didn't have to.
I nodded once. "Close the door," I said.
I stood at the window until the room went dark. She had told me. That was the thought that kept coming back. She hadn't hidden it. She hadn't left without saying a word. She had stood at my gate in the rain with nothing and told me the truth, and I had called it a trap.
I hadn't been tricked. I had just been wrong.
There was a boy in Como who had never heard my name. He had a blank space on his birth record because his mother had walked away from my gate and decided to make a life from nothing. She chose that rather than letting my name be connected to her ever again.
I wondered if he had her eyes. I wondered if he knew how to laugh, or if he was as serious as she had become. The weight of what I had missed settled in my stomach like lead.
I stayed at the window until the city lights turned on and reflected in the water. The Arno looked cold and black.
I picked up my phone. My hand found her name before I even decided to look for it. I pressed call. It rang once, then twice. My heart was thumping against my teeth. It rang four times.
"You’ve reached Valentina Greco. Leave a message."
- Writer
