Chương 14
He looked at the employees.
Some appeared angry. Some bored. One man ate chips from a vending-machine bag. A woman in housekeeping scrubs whispered to a coworker while staring directly at Lorenzo. Nobody looked grateful.
He put the pages down.
“Money was taken from your wages,” he said. “Managers working for me did it. I did not know. I benefited from not knowing.”
The room became quiet.
He explained the repayment process, outside review, and appeal system. He did not call the reforms a new beginning. He did not ask for trust.
During questions, an electrician wanted to know whether speaking publicly would affect future assignments. A cleaner asked why interest on missing wages was calculated at one rate rather than another. A driver demanded reimbursement for tolls deducted over five years.
Lorenzo did not know every answer.
He said so.
Afterward, Dominic told him the meeting had gone well.
“It felt terrible,” Lorenzo said.
“That may be why.”
Winter settled over the mansion.
The white flowers along the wet path disappeared, replaced by bare stems and dark mulch. The trash bins were moved behind a wooden screen because the crash of the lid had become fixed in Lorenzo’s memory. He had not ordered the change. Emil said the screen kept raccoons out.
One afternoon in January, Clara called.
Lorenzo looked at her name for several seconds before answering.
“Is Emma all right?”
“She’s fine.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
He realized he was standing.
Clara sighed. “Her preschool has a family day next Friday.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“She wants Pino.”
Lorenzo looked toward the office doorway. The dog lay in the hall, asleep with one paw over his nose.
“The school allows dogs?”
“Certified therapy dogs.”
“He isn’t one.”
“I know. I have explained this thirteen times.”
“What does she expect me to do?”
“She thinks you are Pino’s driver.”
Lorenzo sat down.
Clara continued. “I told her no. Then she cried during breakfast and put the rabbit in time-out for failing to help.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to know whether Pino could visit her somewhere else. A park. Outside. Not the mansion.”
“Why not the mansion?”
Silence.
He closed his eyes. “Right.”
“I’m not trying to punish you.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You sounded like it.”
He looked at Pino. The dog opened one eye.
“There’s a park near your apartment?” Lorenzo asked.
“Yes.”
“Sunday morning.”
“Ten.”
“Send the location to Dominic.”
“No guards.”
“One car.”
“No visible guards.”
“One car parked away.”
Clara exhaled. “Fine.”
“Does Emma know I’m coming?”
“She asked for the dog.”
“I understood.”
“She also drew you.”
“What did I look like?”
“A tall rectangle with angry eyebrows.”
“Accurate.”
Clara laughed softly. “Sunday.”
The park was crowded with children, strollers, cyclists, and people drinking coffee from paper cups. Lorenzo arrived in a charcoal overcoat and no tie. Dominic remained in a car half a block away, complaining by text that this did not qualify as security.
Pino saw Emma first.
The dog pulled hard enough to slide Lorenzo’s shoe across the pavement. Emma ran from the playground in a pink coat, the one-eyed rabbit bouncing under her arm.
“Pino!”
Parents turned at the sight of the massive Doberman charging toward a three-year-old. Lorenzo tightened the leash, but Pino slowed on his own, lowered his body, and let Emma collide with his neck.
She laughed into his coat.
Clara approached more slowly, hands in her pockets. She wore jeans, boots, and a blue knit hat. Without the gray uniform, Lorenzo almost failed to recognize the way she carried herself. She looked less afraid. Not unafraid.
“Thank you,” she said.
“He was becoming impossible.”
“I doubt that’s new.”
Emma held up the rabbit. A white button had been sewn where the missing eye had been.
“Bunny fixed,” she said.
Lorenzo crouched to examine it. “I see.”
“Mommy did it bad.”
Clara frowned. “I did my best.”
“The button is larger than the original eye,” Lorenzo said.
“Thank you for the expert review.”
Emma touched the folded white handkerchief tucked around the rabbit like a scarf. Lorenzo recognized it.
“You kept that?”
“Bunny kept,” Emma said.
They walked beside the playground while Emma held Pino’s leash with both hands and Lorenzo kept one hand around it above hers. Clara watched the dog closely.
“He won’t pull her,” Lorenzo said.
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
She glanced at him, surprised by the answer.
At a bench, Emma fed Pino pieces of a plain bagel despite Clara’s objections. Lorenzo drank bad park coffee. Clara had hot chocolate and complained it was too sweet, then finished it.
For several minutes, they talked about nothing important. Emma’s preschool teacher wore earrings shaped like apples. The apartment radiator clanged at night. Pino had destroyed a leather chair. Lorenzo’s cook refused to admit the green beans had been overdone.
Then Clara asked, “What will happen to Renata?”
“She’ll be sentenced in the spring. Probation is likely.”
“Will she have somewhere to live?”
“Yes. Her sister has a place in Connecticut.”
“Did you arrange that?”
“No.”
Clara nodded.
“Would it bother you if I had?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“That is convenient.”
She gave him a look.
He almost smiled.
Emma climbed onto the bench between them, tired from running. She leaned against Clara and rested both shoes on Lorenzo’s coat without asking. Pino lay across their feet.
Clara adjusted the rabbit’s handkerchief. “Emma still talks about the trash bins.”
“What does she say?”
“That the loud lid scared Bunny. That Pino saved her. Sometimes she says the silver lady was sad.”
“Was Renata sad?”
“I think Emma saw her crying before anyone else did.”
Lorenzo watched a father push a child on the swings while looking at his phone. “Renata frightened her.”
“Both things can be true.”
He looked at Clara.
May you like
“She did something terrible,” Clara said. “She was also afraid. Emma doesn’t understand why adults insist one feeling must erase another.”
“That sounds like something Mara would say.”
