Chương 1
"Three gold coins lay on the marble table when Ellie Romano asked why her mother kept apologizing for things she had not done.
The question landed softly, in the small voice of a three-year-old who still slept with a one-eyed stuffed bear tucked beneath her chin, but my brother Dante went still across the dining room.
Clara Romano went still too.
I had known Clara for eight months, and until that moment I would have described her as quiet, competent, forgettable in the way good household employees sometimes become forgettable to men who have spent too much of their lives being served.
Now I noticed the serving fork trembling between her fingers.
“Ellie,” Clara whispered.
The child looked up at her mother.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Moretti.”
Clara said it automatically.
I had accused her of nothing.
Dante leaned against the mantel and gave a short laugh.
“She apologizes to furniture when she bumps into it, Vince.”
Nobody laughed with him.
The house was too quiet for laughter anyway.
December eighteenth had always made it quiet.
Seven years earlier, on that date, my daughter Sofia had died in a hospital room with paper snowflakes taped to the window and a television playing a Christmas movie nobody watched.
She was nine.
The leukemia had taken nearly two years to kill her, which meant I had spent nearly two years learning how useless money could be.
Afterward, I kept one tradition and abandoned almost everything else.
Every December eighteenth, I invited a few people who had loved Sofia to dinner at my Long Island home.
No speeches.
No photographs arranged like a shrine.
No charity photographers.
Just food she liked, people she liked, and three ridiculous gold-colored coins I had bought for six dollars at a museum gift shop when she was obsessed with pirates.
On Sofia’s birthdays, I would put the coins in front of her and tell her each one bought a wish.
She had wished for a dog.
She had wished for midnight pancakes.
Once she wished for me to cancel a meeting because thunder was frightening her.
I had complained about that one.
I could still hear myself telling her that grown-ups had responsibilities.
Seven years later, I would have burned every company I owned to sit through one more thunderstorm beside her.
That evening, perhaps because grief makes sentimental fools of otherwise practical men, I had placed Sofia’s coins in front of Ellie.
“Three wishes,” I had told her.
I expected ice cream.
A pony was possible.
At three, children had not yet learned to make affordable requests.
Instead, she asked why her mother had to say sorry when she had done nothing wrong.
I crouched beside her chair.
“That’s your first wish?”
Ellie nodded.
Her dark curls bounced against the shoulders of a red sweater that was slightly too large for her.
Clara had told the housekeeper it came from her sister’s child.
I had heard that and forgotten it within thirty seconds.
Now I was noticing everything.
I pushed the second coin toward Ellie.
“What’s the next one?”
Clara stepped forward.
“She’s tired, sir.”
“Then she can answer tomorrow.”
“No.”
The word came out too quickly.
Clara lowered her eyes.
“I mean, thank you, but she should go downstairs.”
Dante’s expression changed by less than an inch.
“Clara.”
She flinched.
There are movements the body makes before pride can stop it.
I had seen that kind of flinch in men who owed money to dangerous people, in employees waiting to be fired, and once in a witness who had lied to me for twenty minutes before discovering I already possessed the truth.
I looked at Dante.
“Why are you giving orders to my employee?”
“For Christ’s sake, Vince.”
“It’s a simple question.”
“She’s making a scene.”
Clara stared at the floor.
She had become pale.
Ellie climbed down from her chair and pressed herself against her mother’s leg.
“Uncle Dante gets mad when Mommy makes mistakes.”
Dante’s eyes moved to the child.
Something cold entered his face before he covered it.
“I’m not your uncle, sweetheart.”
Ellie squeezed her bear.
“Mommy calls you that.”
Clara closed her eyes.
The room seemed to contract around us.
My sister Teresa stopped halfway through lifting her wineglass.
Father Michael, who had baptized Sofia and had known my family for thirty years, slowly set down his fork.
My attorney, Paul Brennan, looked at me once and then deliberately looked away, which was what Paul did whenever he wanted me to understand that I should stop talking until I knew more.
I ignored him.
“Clara,” I said, “look at me.”
She did not.
“Has my brother been coming here when I’m not home?”
Dante pushed away from the mantel.
“This is absurd.”
“I asked Clara.”
“And she works for you, so maybe don’t interrogate her in front of twelve people.”
It was almost reasonable.
That irritated me more than shouting would have.
Clara finally looked up.
Her eyes were wet, but she was not crying.
“Mr. Dante sometimes comes to the house.”
“How often?”
“Vincent.”
Dante’s voice sharpened.
I turned toward him.
He had always hated when I used silence against him.
As boys, Dante could tolerate punishment better than uncertainty.
At fifty-one, apparently, he still could.
He straightened his cuff.
“I use the west office occasionally.”
“The west office is mine.”
“You told me years ago I could.”
“Years ago you didn’t know Clara.”
A muscle moved in his jaw.
Clara bent to pick up Ellie.
The child resisted.
“My bear fell.”
The bear was under the table.
Father Michael retrieved it and handed it to her.
One of its button eyes was missing, leaving a dark knot of thread.
“Thank you,” Ellie said.
“You’re welcome.”
For several seconds, that was all anybody said.
From the kitchen came the faint clatter of someone dropping a pan, followed by a muffled curse.
Normal life had continued twenty feet away.
May you like
I envied it.
I picked up the second coin and held it toward Ellie.
