Chapter 6 - The Night the Power Went Out
The paternity results arrived on a Tuesday.
Griffin opened them alone.
She sat on the edge of a bed that wasn’t hers, reading clinical language that confirmed what everyone already believed.
Salvatore Moretti was her biological father.
No music swelled.
No missing childhood returned.
Outside, somebody argued with a delivery driver about parking.
Griffin laughed once, then cried so hard her ribs hurt.
She was mourning something that had never happened.
Birthday calls.
School concerts.
A second person awake when her mother got sick.
The possibility of having been less afraid.
When she finally called Salvatore, he answered without speaking.
“The results came.”
“Yes,” he said. “Mine too.”
She wiped her face.
“I don’t know what to call you.”
“You don’t have to decide.”
“I don’t even know whether I’m happy.”
“You don’t owe me that either.”
She sat quietly.
Then she asked, “Did you want a daughter?”
His breathing shook.
“I wanted you.”
Griffin closed her eyes.
It was a dangerous sentence.
She let herself hear it anyway.
That evening, Roman cooked pasta in the rental kitchen.
Evelyn arrived with groceries and a crossword book.
For almost an hour, their lives felt ordinary.
Then the power went out.
The kitchen light vanished.
The refrigerator stopped humming.
Roman’s concentrator fell silent.
Griffin stood so abruptly her chair struck the wall.
“Backup tank.”
“I have it,” Roman said.
But her voice had changed.
Evelyn switched on her phone flashlight.
From the hallway came a heavy sound.
Not a neighbor dropping something.
A shoulder against a door.
Griffin reached for her phone.
Another impact.
Someone called Roman’s name.
She dialed emergency services.
Evelyn helped Roman attach the portable oxygen while Griffin gave the address.
The operator told them to stay away from the entrance and remain on the line.
A man outside said, “We only want to talk.”
Griffin guided her mother toward the bedroom.
The apartment had been chosen partly because it had a second exit onto an exterior stairwell.
Now she understood why Maya had asked about exits before asking about furniture.
Evelyn opened the rear door.
Cold air struck Griffin’s face.
Below them, a motion light snapped on.
A neighbor looked up from the parking area.
“What’s happening?”
“Call the police,” Griffin shouted.
“I already did.”
The voice outside the front door stopped.
Footsteps moved quickly.
By the time patrol cars reached the building, a dark vehicle was pulling away from the curb.
Officers stopped it two streets over.
One man had a tool bag.
The other had a photograph of Roman.
Neither had a convincing explanation.
Griffin sat in the back of an ambulance while paramedics checked her mother.
She was shaking too badly to hold a cup of water.
Salvatore arrived twenty minutes later.
He stopped outside the ambulance until Griffin nodded.
“Don’t tell me you could have prevented this if I’d stayed with you,” she said.
His face tightened.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“What were you going to say?”
“That I’m sorry this is happening.”
She looked away.
For once, she did not want to argue.
She wanted to be twenty-two in a world where twenty-two was young.
Salvatore removed his coat.
He held it out.
Griffin accepted.
Across the street, an officer spoke with Luca.
Another photographed the electrical cabinet.
Someone had deliberately cut the apartment’s power.
Roman reached through the ambulance doorway and took Griffin’s hand.
“I thought hiding was enough.”
Griffin squeezed back.
“We’re done hiding alone.”
Salvatore stood nearby, listening.
He did not promise revenge.
He asked the officer where he could give a statement.
May you like
Griffin watched him walk toward the patrol car.
For the first time, she wondered whether the most difficult thing this man had ever done might be letting someone else take charge.
