Chapter 1 - The Laugh I Thought We Had Lost
I knew that laugh.
Before my mother died, it used to fill our kitchen on Sunday mornings. It belonged to a man who burned pancakes, kissed scraped knees, and let me decorate his expensive shoes with glitter stickers.
Then came the funeral.
After that, my father still came home. His laughter didn’t.
But now a five-year-old in broken sneakers had somehow brought it back with one terrible joke.
I should have been happy.
Instead, I stood on the school steps fighting tears.
My name is Isabella Moretti. I was eleven that October, old enough to understand that money could buy almost anything except the things our house needed.
Zoe Turner peered through the open car window.
“Was it really that funny?”
My father wiped his eyes.
“Apparently.”
“Good.” She nodded solemnly. “Because Isabella said you forgot how.”
Every guard went still.
My cheeks burned.
“Zoe.”
She turned toward me, confused. “What? You did.”
My father looked past her.
For a moment, I saw him notice me instead of merely checking that I was present, safe, and accounted for.
“You told her that?”
I stared at the wet sidewalk.
“At reading buddies.”
St. Catherine’s paired older students with kindergarteners twice a week. Zoe was mine. She stumbled over words like enough but could remember every joke she had ever heard.
Last Tuesday, she had asked why my father always looked angry.
I had told her the truth.
“He isn’t angry. He’s sad.”
Then I had said something I hadn’t meant to say aloud.
“I think he forgot how to be my dad.”
My father opened his car door.
The guard nearest him stepped forward, but he lifted one hand.
“Give us a minute.”
He came toward me slowly, leaning on the cane he had used since the accident that killed my mother.
“Bella.”
That was what she had called me.
I tightened my grip on my backpack.
Before he could speak again, a woman’s voice cut through the afternoon.
“Zoe!”
A thin woman in blue scrubs hurried across the street, her coat flapping open. Her hair had escaped its clip, and exhaustion seemed sewn into the lines around her mouth.
She reached Zoe and pulled her close.
“I told you to wait beside Sister Margaret.”
“I was helping Isabella’s dad.”
The woman looked up.
Everything changed.
Her face drained. Her fingers locked around Zoe’s shoulder, then loosened immediately, as if she had caught herself holding too tightly.
My father stopped breathing.
“Grace?”
She took one step back.
“No.”
It wasn’t an answer. It was a plea.
My father’s driver got out of the car.
“Mr. Moretti?”
“Stay there, Nico.”
Grace looked from my father to me.
Something in her expression broke.
“You look like her,” she whispered.
“Did you know my mom?”
She pressed her lips together.
My father’s voice turned quiet.
“We thought you left the city.”
“I did.”
“Then why—”
“Please don’t.”
Zoe glanced between them, her confidence finally wavering.
“Mommy?”
Grace bent and straightened her cardigan.
“We’re going home.”
My father reached inside his coat.
She flinched.
He froze, then slowly withdrew a business card instead.
“If you need anything.”
“I don’t.”
Her answer came too fast.
A city bus sighed to a stop at the corner. Grace took Zoe’s hand and moved toward it.
Zoe looked back.
“Try laughing tomorrow, too!”
My father raised his hand.
Grace didn’t turn around.
Inside the car, I waited until the doors closed.
“Who is she?”
My father stared through the windshield.
“Someone your mother trusted.”
“Why was she scared of you?”
Nico glanced into the mirror.
My father’s hand tightened around his cane.
“I don’t know.”
It was the first time I remembered hearing him say that.
When we reached home, he went straight to the study. Usually, that meant I wouldn’t see him until breakfast.
That evening, I heard him call someone.
“Find out who told us Grace Turner moved to Arizona.”
A pause.
Then his voice changed.
“No. Don’t send anyone near her.”
I stood outside the door, hardly breathing.
“I want the original report.”
Later, at dinner, my father sat beside me instead of at the far end of the table.
He asked what book Zoe and I were reading.
I answered.
He listened.
And just when I started believing the afternoon might have been a small miracle, his phone lit up.
May you like
One message filled the screen.
Grace Turner never left New York. Someone has been paying to keep her hidden.
