Chapter 2 - The Name Marco Shouldn’t Have Known
Camilla sat on my sofa while Marco stood near the front door.
Nobody had asked him to sit.
I put Elena's envelope on the mantel.
Far enough from both of them that reaching for it would be obvious.
“Where did you hear Harbor House?”
Marco crossed his arms.
“My father.”
“Anthony told you?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The day I found that.”
He looked at the envelope.
“Why would you call Anthony about Elena's letter?”
“Because it was in my mother's cedar chest.”
Lydia had died eleven months earlier.
Cancer.
Fast.
I had sent flowers.
I did not attend the funeral.
Camilla had.
I asked:
“Why were you going through Lydia's papers?”
Marco's jaw tightened.
“Because someone had to empty her house.”
Fair.
“What exactly did you find?”
“The envelope. A few old photographs. Nothing else that concerns you.”
I almost responded.
Camilla did instead.
“You told me there was a note.”
Marco looked at her.
“What note?”
“The one wrapped around the envelope.”
His expression changed.
I caught it.
“You never mentioned a note.”
Marco looked at me.
“It wasn't important.”
Camilla laughed.
“You spent eight months telling me it was important.”
I turned toward her.
“What did it say?”
She closed her eyes, remembering.
“Marco showed me a photograph of it.”
“What did it say?”
She opened her eyes.
“Two lines.”
I waited.
“‘If Elena never asks for this back, don't destroy it.’”
My chest tightened.
“Whose handwriting?”
“Lydia's.”
“And the second line?”
Camilla looked at Marco.
He stared at the floor.
She answered.
“‘I should have listened sooner.’”
Nobody spoke.
I looked at the envelope again.
Elena had trusted Lydia with it.
Lydia had kept it for more than two decades.
Marco said:
“You're all acting like that proves something.”
“It proves you withheld it.”
“I found a twenty-three-year-old letter in my dead mother's house.”
“Addressed to me.”
“Yes.”
“And you kept it.”
“I had reasons.”
Camilla turned on him.
“You had leverage.”
His head snapped toward her.
“Don't.”
“That's what it became.”
“Camilla.”
“You brought it up every time I talked about leaving.”
My eyes moved between them.
Marco's anger became quieter.
More controlled.
“What did you tell her?”
He ignored me.
Camilla answered.
“He said my mother did the same thing.”
“Same as what?”
“Ran.”
Marco said:
“That is not what I said.”
Camilla stared at him.
“You said women in my family confuse panic with freedom.”
He looked away.
I felt something old and ugly open in my chest.
Not because Marco was entirely wrong about Elena leaving.
Because I recognized the style of sentence.
Turn someone's decision into a defect.
Then offer to protect them from it.
I had been good at that once.
I asked Camilla:
“Why were you leaving Marco?”
Marco scoffed.
“Here we go.”
Camilla looked at me.
“Not tonight.”
I nodded.
“Okay.”
She blinked.
I could tell she'd expected an interrogation.
Maybe she deserved a different father for the next five minutes.
Marco pushed away from the wall.
“I’m taking my wife home.”
Camilla stood.
“No.”
He stared.
“Camilla.”
“No.”
“Don't do this because you're emotional.”
I saw her face change.
He didn't.
She whispered:
“That sentence is exactly why I'm not coming.”
Marco rubbed both hands over his face.
“This is insane. We're fighting because of a letter nobody has even opened.”
“No,” Camilla said. “We're fighting because you kept it unopened.”
That was better.
More precise.
Marco looked at me.
“You're going to let her stay here while she's like this?”
I almost answered the old way.
Of course.
She's my daughter.
My house.
My protection.
Instead I looked at Camilla.
“Do you want to stay?”
“Yes.”
Marco's mouth tightened.
I nodded.
“She stays.”
“You don't get to decide that.”
“I didn't.”
He looked at Camilla.
For one second I saw something that bothered me more than anger.
Calculation.
Not sinister.
Habitual.
The look of a man searching for the version of the conversation that would restore the outcome he expected.
He picked up his coat.
At the door he said:
“You want to open it? Fine.”
Camilla watched him.
“But when you find out your mother tried to break two families, don't pretend nobody warned you.”
He left.
The door closed.
Camilla stood motionless.
I waited until his car pulled away.
Then she sat.
“I broke the vase.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“It wasn't an accident.”
She wiped her face.
“He saw me looking at it.”
“You put the envelope beneath it?”
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
“This afternoon.”
“Why destroy the vase?”
“Because he started walking toward it.”
She looked ashamed.
“I knew if he lifted it, he'd get the letter back.”
“So you knocked it over.”
“Yes.”
“That vase belonged to your grandmother.”
“I know.”
I looked at the porcelain pieces.
Then at my daughter.
She had destroyed something valuable because she believed the only way to expose a secret was to make retrieval impossible.
That told me more about her marriage than she had.
I sat opposite her.
“Marco was right about one thing.”
Her shoulders tensed.
“Your mother left this house.”
She stared at me.
“She stayed at Harbor House for nineteen days.”
“With me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I looked at Elena's envelope.
Then back at my daughter.
“Because I paid a man to follow her.”
Camilla stopped breathing for a second.
“What?”
“I thought your mother was lying to me.”
“About what?”
“Where she was going.”
“And she was?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I looked toward the fireplace.
“Because she was protecting Lydia.”
Marco's mother.
May you like
Camilla stared.
“And I didn't understand that until after I'd already helped the wrong man find her.”
