Chapter 3 - The Mother Who Had Not Disappeared
Dante canceled his afternoon meetings.
Maya watched him make the decision with the startled expression of someone discovering a door in a wall he had walked past for years.
He called Dr. Harris first.
Not his security chief.
Not the cousin who managed his office.
The psychologist advised him not to question Sophia repeatedly or argue about adult events in front of her.
Then he asked Maya whether she could remain for another half hour.
“I need to make some calls.”
“You need someone qualified to stay with her regularly,” Maya said.
“I know.”
“And she needs to know when I’m leaving.”
He nodded.
Together, they explained that Maya would draw with her until four, then go to work.
Sophia did not like the answer.
She accepted it better than Maya expected.
At precisely four, Dante returned.
His expression had changed.
Sophia was building a crooked tower from wooden blocks.
Maya rose.
“Tomorrow?” the child asked.
“I work tomorrow too.”
Her face fell.
“But your daddy knows how to reach me.”
Dante walked Maya to the front door.
“I spoke to my attorney.”
“All right.”
“Elena’s attorney has been trying to contact us.”
Maya stared at him.
Sophia’s mother had a name now.
Elena.
Not the woman who left.
Not the problem.
A person with an attorney who had been making calls.
“Trying how?”
“Messages through my office.”
“Who handles those?”
“My cousin. Adrian.”
He said the name flatly.
“What did he tell you?”
“That she wanted distance. That she had gone abroad. That any contact would make the separation worse.”
“And you believed him?”
Dante looked toward the staircase.
“Yes.”
There was no comfortable answer after that.
Maya buttoned her coat.
“I think you need to find out why.”
At Bellanotte, Tony noticed her distracted expression immediately.
“Eat before you tell me anything.”
He placed pasta in front of her.
She ate standing near the service window and told him only what he needed to know.
Sophia’s mother might not have disappeared voluntarily.
Tony rubbed a hand over his face.
“People hear the Russo name and assume everyone inside that family knows what everyone else is doing.”
“They don’t?”
“Knowing is not the same as asking.”
That sentence remained with Maya through the dinner rush.
At seven, a woman entered the restaurant alone.
She wore jeans, a red wool coat, and no makeup.
Her face looked older than the photograph Dante had shown her.
But Maya recognized her immediately.
Elena Russo.
Tony approached first.
Before he spoke, she said, “I’m not here to cause trouble. Is Maya Chen working?”
Maya set down her water pitcher.
“I’m Maya.”
Elena stared at her.
Then her eyes filled.
“Did she really sleep?”
Maya felt the restaurant recede around them.
“Yes.”
“For more than an hour?”
“Yes.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Tony guided her to a quiet table.
Maya sat only after he nodded that he would cover her section.
For a moment, Elena could not speak.
Then the words came unevenly.
“I left after an argument. I said I needed three days to speak to someone and think clearly. I was staying with my sister.”
“Did Dante know?”
“I told him where. He was angry. He said we’d speak through the office.”
Maya listened.
“Adrian called that night. He said Dante wanted space. Then he said I shouldn’t come back to the house until the lawyers had spoken.”
“Did you try to see Sophia?”
“Yes. The gate staff wouldn’t let me in. I was told there were instructions.”
Her hands tightened around the water glass Tony brought.
“My attorney has been trying since yesterday morning. Today, Dante finally called.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because he told me about you.”
She swallowed.
“And because I needed to thank the person who held my daughter while everyone else was busy deciding what the situation looked like.”
Maya looked down.
“I didn’t do anything remarkable.”
“To her, you did.”
Elena reached into her handbag and removed a folded sheet.
It was a photocopy of a letter.
“I wrote these for Sophia before I left. One for each night. I gave them to Nora.”
Maya thought of the torn pages.
“What did they say?”
“That I loved her. That grown-up arguments weren’t her fault. That I would see her Friday.”
For a moment, Maya could hear only the kitchen fan.
“Were they in a yellow book?”
Elena looked up sharply.
“Yes.”
Maya chose her words carefully.
“I think you should tell your attorney about that.”
Elena studied her face.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know all of it.”
But as she reached for her phone, Maya understood something she wished she did not.
May you like
Sophia had not simply been waiting for her mother to return.
Someone had been teaching her to stop expecting it.
