Chapter 7: What Teresa Remembers
For several seconds after Dr. Rosen’s call ended, nobody spoke.
The car rolled through Chicago traffic, carrying us back toward the mansion. Luca held his phone in one hand and the envelope of medical records in the other. Teresa sat beside me in the back seat, looking down at her fingers as if the memory Dr. Rosen had stirred was waiting somewhere in their trembling.
“Someone had just left the house,” Luca said at last. “That’s what you told the doctor.”
Teresa swallowed. “I heard him say it.”
“Do you know who it was?”
She closed her eyes. “I don’t know.”
I watched her face, careful not to fill in the silence for her. The doctor’s recollection was a clue, not an answer. I had learned how easily a question could become a suggestion—and how a suggestion could settle into someone’s memory until it felt like the truth.
Luca lowered his voice.
“Mom, you don’t have to remember anything right now.”
“I know.” Teresa opened her eyes. “But I want to try.”
When we reached the mansion, Luca asked the driver to wait. He wanted to take Teresa upstairs himself, but she said she was tired of being escorted everywhere as if she might disappear between rooms.
“I can walk,” she told him.
Luca stepped back. “All right.”
She leaned on my arm as we crossed the foyer. Her steps were slow, but she chose them herself. Luca watched us go, then turned toward the study.
I helped Teresa settle in the small sitting room outside her bedroom. The room faced the back garden, and sunlight lay across the rug in a pale rectangle.
“Would you like tea?” I asked.
“Maybe later.” She glanced toward the door. “Could you stay a little?”
“Of course.”
I pulled a chair beside hers. I didn’t ask who had left the house. Not yet. Instead, I asked the question I wished someone had asked her before the night became a story everybody else told.
“What do you remember about being with Mr. Moretti?”
Teresa rubbed her thumb over the edge of her sleeve.
“Giovanni was sitting at his desk. He had papers spread all over it. He was upset, but he was trying not to show it.”
“Do you remember what he said?”
“Not all of it.”
She frowned, reaching for the memory carefully.
“He said he’d made up his mind. Something about ending things the way they’d been done before. He wanted Luca to know. He said there were papers that would explain.”
The letter Luca had read in Eleanor Price’s office came back to me: Giovanni’s plan to end the family’s criminal operations and account for the money. It explained why the brothers had argued. It didn’t tell us what happened afterward.
“Did Michael leave while you were in the room?” I asked.
Teresa nodded once.
“I remember his voice in the hall. Then the front door. I stayed with Giovanni.”
“Did you see him leave?”
“I’m not sure.” Her hand tightened over her sleeve. “I heard the door. I thought it was him. Later, Giovanni asked me to call Luca.”
“What did you do?”
“I went to the phone.”
She looked toward the sitting room’s side table, where an old landline rested beneath a lace cloth. For a moment, I wondered if the sight of it had brought something back.
“I picked up the receiver,” she said. “There was nothing. No dial tone.”
“Did you try again?”
“Twice. Maybe more.” Her mouth trembled. “Giovanni told me to use the phone in the kitchen. I went there, but that one was dead, too.”
I held still, letting her set the pace.
“What happened when you went back?”
“He was worse. He couldn’t catch his breath. I called for help from a neighbor’s house, I think. Or maybe I sent someone. It’s all mixed up.”
Her breathing grew shallow. I moved my chair closer but didn’t touch her without asking.
“Would you like to stop?”
Teresa looked at me and nodded.
“We can stop.”
She took several slow breaths. I stayed beside her until the tension eased from her shoulders.
A few minutes later, Luca appeared in the doorway. He’d taken off his suit jacket, but his tie was still knotted tight.
“How is she?”
“Tired,” Teresa answered before I could. “Not helpless.”
Luca’s expression softened with regret.
“I know, Mom.”
She looked at him steadily. “Then let me finish before you decide what it means.”
“I will.”
Teresa glanced at me, and I understood that she wanted me to remain. I stayed in the chair while Luca sat across from her.
“I remember Michael leaving,” she said. “I believe it was before Giovanni got sick. But I don’t know how long before. I won’t pretend I know.”
Luca nodded. “That’s enough for now.”
“No,” she said. “It’s what I know. That’s different.”
He accepted the correction without arguing.
I thought of what Michael had said outside Dr. Rosen’s office: Dad had a heart attack. Mom was there. The doctor confirmed it. The medical records supported a natural cardiac death. They didn’t tell us whether a phone had worked, when Michael left, or how long Giovanni had been struggling before help arrived.
Luca stood.
“I want to check the household records. There may be an old maintenance or telephone entry from that night.”
“Do you think someone disconnected the phones?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” He paused at the doorway. “That’s why I’m checking.”
Teresa looked up at him. “Don’t turn a missing piece into a verdict.”
“I won’t.”
He left for the office.
I stayed with Teresa while she rested. I thought about the bills stacked on my kitchen counter at home, and how much of my next paycheck was already promised to them. Luca had protected my job when Vanessa threatened it, but that didn’t make me secure. I couldn’t afford to treat the mansion as if it were mine, or to confuse his gratitude with a guarantee.
Still, I couldn’t pretend Teresa’s fear meant nothing.
When she finally closed her eyes, I went to the office to check on Luca. He was standing behind the desk with a thick binder open in front of him. Its pages were filled with handwritten entries, dates, delivery notes, and maintenance requests.
“I found the old household logs,” he said. “I’m looking for anything about the phones.”
I looked at the page before him. There were entries for deliveries and repairs, but the handwriting changed from one section to another.
“Who kept these?”
“Different house managers over the years. The office saved them.”
He turned another page. I watched him scan the lines, then flip back to an earlier date.
“This is the week Dad died.”
He placed the binder flat on the desk. The entry column was narrow, and the writing in it had faded, but several words were still clear. Luca leaned closer.
“Here,” he said.
The entry was brief. It listed a service interruption for the house telephone on the evening Giovanni collapsed.
Luca read it again, his jaw tightening.
“Does it say why?” I asked.
“No.”
“Who requested it?”
He moved his finger down the page. There was no name, only a time and a notation in the margin.
Teresa appeared at the doorway, holding the frame for support. She’d come downstairs without waiting for anyone to escort her.
“I wanted to see,” she said.
Luca started toward her, then stopped himself.
“Would you like to come in?”
“Yes.”
I offered my arm. Teresa took it, and we walked to the desk at her pace.
Luca turned the binder so she could read the entry. She studied it for a long moment.
“I remember the phones being dead,” she said. “I don’t remember anyone touching them.”
“Neither do I,” Luca replied.
The note didn’t tell us who had requested the interruption. It didn’t tell us whether the service had failed, whether someone had followed a routine procedure, or whether the entry had been made after the fact. It only showed that the line had been interrupted and that the household had recorded it.
Luca looked from the binder to his mother.
“Someone documented it that night.”
May you like
Teresa’s hand closed around my arm.
“Then find out who.”
