Chapter 4 - The Baby in the Other Photograph
Emma expected accusation.
The way Salvatore looked at the device, then at her, made her prepare for it.
Instead, he asked one question.
“Who had access to your bag?”
“The staff room. My apartment. The facility reception area.”
She folded her arms to hide the trembling.
“Possibly the entire world, apparently.”
Detective Bell arrived with another officer.
The bag and device were preserved.
Emma gave her account again.
She was beginning to hate how fear sounded when reduced to a sequence of times.
After the officers finished, Miriam insisted the original purpose of the meeting remain separate from the threat investigation.
“Photographs suggest questions,” she said. “They don’t establish identity.”
Salvatore nodded.
“I understand.”
Emma looked at him.
“Do you?”
His expression shifted.
“I was ten when my mother died. People told me to stop asking where my sister was.”
For the first time, he sounded less like a man accustomed to obedience.
More like a child who had grown around an unanswered question.
Emma sat.
“What do you remember?”
“A blue blanket. A stuffed rabbit with one ear stitched differently. My mother singing terribly.”
Despite herself, Emma glanced at the photograph.
Nora had given Rebecca a battered rabbit when Emma was small.
Its left ear had been repaired with yellow thread.
She looked away.
Coincidence could become a trap if a person wanted something badly enough.
Miriam arranged an independently administered DNA test with both parties’ informed consent.
Emma chose the provider.
Results would go to her and Salvatore separately.
No private technician.
No family employee.
No result announced while she stood inside someone else’s house.
Salvatore agreed to every condition.
Before leaving, Emma asked about the music box.
It was brought into the room.
Small.
Walnut.
A chipped painted bird on the lid.
Nora had recognized it in the photograph.
Emma opened it.
A thin melody played.
She did not remember it.
She wished she did not feel disappointed.
Inside the base, beneath an old compartment cover, lay a miniature recording device.
The kind used decades earlier.
Its cassette was missing.
“Where is the tape?” she asked.
Salvatore looked toward Luca.
“We hoped your grandmother knew.”
Emma closed the lid.
She was tired of being the doorway through which everyone tried to reach Nora.
“I’ll ask her.”
At home that evening, Daniel arrived with groceries after she told him she was safe to receive visitors.
He stood outside until she invited him in.
“People keep bringing me photographs,” she said.
“I brought potatoes.”
She laughed unexpectedly.
Then cried.
He set down the bags.
“Would you like company or space?”
“Company. Quiet company.”
He stayed while she folded laundry.
Neither pretended the shirts were important.
Three days later, the results arrived.
Emma opened them in Miriam’s office.
The language was technical.
The conclusion was not.
The findings strongly supported a full-sibling relationship.
Emma read the page twice.
Then set it down.
Miriam waited.
“Does this mean everything else is true?”
“No. It means this relationship is supported. Other questions still need answers.”
Emma appreciated the distinction.
Across town, Salvatore received the same result.
He called once.
She let it ring.
An hour later, she called back.
He answered immediately.
Neither spoke.
Finally, Emma said, “I don’t know how to do this.”
His breath caught.
“Neither do I.”
She stared at the rain moving down her window.
“I’m not calling you my brother because a laboratory says I should.”
“All right.”
“And Rebecca was my mother.”
“Yes.”
“Nora is my grandmother.”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes.
On the other end, he was crying quietly.
She could hear him trying not to.
For reasons she could not explain, that broke something open.
“Tell me one thing about her,” Emma said.
“Our mother?”
“Yes.”
He took a moment.
“She hated being called elegant.”
Emma wiped her face.
“Why?”
“Because she thought it usually meant people wanted her to stop talking.”
Emma laughed through the tears.
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For the first time, Elena Russo became someone other than a dead woman holding a baby.
She became a person Emma wanted to know.
