Chapter 12 - A TABLE FOR TWO
On Saturday afternoon I changed clothes four times, which was ridiculous considering I had spent the preceding week explaining to worried parents that nobody needed to be perfectly prepared to ask for help. My bedroom looked as if an impatient stylist had lost an argument with a laundry basket. In the end I chose a navy dress and comfortable shoes. I wanted to be able to walk home if the evening went badly. More importantly, I wanted to be able to walk home if it went wonderfully and I needed time alone to understand why.
Mom sat at my kitchen table with a cup of tea, watching me twist my hair into a knot.
“There's no competition,” she said.
“Who said there was?”
“You've asked me whether the earrings look cheap three times. Hannah, they're earrings. They don't submit financial disclosures.”
I laughed, and she smiled. A year ago she had watched me leave for work at the Moretti estate with a different kind of dread. That morning I had needed a paycheck so badly I would have swallowed almost any humiliation. Tonight I had a job, savings, friends, and a date I could leave whenever I chose. I had spent so long surviving that being allowed to want something felt unexpectedly dangerous.
“Do you like him?” Mom asked.
“I think so.”
“That's not an answer.”
“I like the way he listens to Lily. I like that he calls before making plans. I like his terrible jokes. I don't like how easily people move aside when he enters a room.”
“Then tell him.”
“I usually do.”
“Yes,” she said. “You do.”
Luca arrived at seven without a chauffeur. He wore a charcoal sweater and carried one small paper bag.
“I brought something,” he said, holding it out with a sheepish expression. Inside was a paperback book about historic neighborhood theaters, its cover marked with a pencil note from a used-book seller. “You said your father restored the old Rialto's frames. I saw this in a shop.”
It was the least extravagant gift I could imagine a wealthy man making, and I loved it immediately. I thanked him, set it carefully beside the keys, and went outside before I could become embarrassingly emotional.
The restaurant was tucked between a laundromat and a florist. Red candles flickered on the tables, and the air was filled with garlic, butter, and the comfortable noise of people who knew they would be fed. Our server asked whether we wanted sparkling water. Luca looked at me rather than answering for us. It was a small habit, but it mattered.
For the first twenty minutes we talked about absurd things. Lily's rabbit, apparently, was named Sir Flops-a-Lot and had recently been promoted to Director of Bedtime Operations. Teresa had refused to sew him a uniform. Luca had tried, using a dish towel and safety pins, with consequences he described as “an incident of structural failure.”
“You run a company,” I said.
“Several, technically.”
“And you can't dress a stuffed rabbit?”
“Leadership requires knowing when to hire specialists.”
I laughed so hard the server returned to check on us.
Then our conversation shifted. Luca told me about the first winter after Caroline died, when Lily had been too young to understand where her mother had gone but old enough to recognize that every adult in the house was frightened. He spoke without trying to make himself heroic. He admitted that he'd hidden at the office for long hours because grief made him feel useless, and that his absence had left room for other people to claim authority they should never have held.
“I told myself I was protecting her by keeping everything running,” he said. “Sometimes I was protecting myself from being needed.”
I turned my glass between my fingers. “What changed?”
“Lily asked Teresa why Daddy was always in photographs instead of at breakfast.”
The room seemed quieter for a moment.
“I made a schedule,” he continued. “Then she got sick with a fever and the schedule became useless. I finally learned that being there wasn't a calendar entry.”
“She's lucky you listened.”
“She deserved it sooner.”
I appreciated that he didn't reach for absolution. There was something restful about a person who could regret his choices without demanding that I edit his memory.
Halfway through dessert, his phone lit up. He glanced at the screen and frowned. I saw him turn it facedown.
“If you need to take it, you can,” I said.
“It's from a company attorney. Unless it's an emergency, they can leave a message.”
“Luca, I don't need you to perform being unavailable for me.”
He smiled, a little sadly. “I know. I'm trying to learn when I actually am.”
After dinner we walked along the riverfront. The bridges were outlined in warm lights, and gulls cried above the dark water. Couples passed with dogs, and two teenagers were arguing passionately about which movie deserved a terrible remake. Luca kept his hands in his pockets until I reached for one of them. His fingers closed around mine, careful and warm.
“I should tell you something,” I said.
“I'm listening.”
“The Harbor Bridge issue may lead to scrutiny of anyone connected to this center, including you. I won't allow our personal relationship to become a shortcut around procedure.”
“Good.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I mean it.”
We stopped beneath a streetlamp. Luca looked at the water before speaking again. “When I was younger, I thought loyalty meant defending family before knowing the facts. Michael used that belief. Others did too. I can't undo what happened, but I can stop making loyalty another name for blindness.”
I remembered the portrait, the hammer, the dust. “And what happens when the facts hurt?”
“Then they hurt.”
That wasn't a romantic line. It was better. I leaned toward him and kissed him softly. For a second he seemed startled, then his hand touched my cheek. He didn't pull me closer than I wanted. The city kept moving around us as though something enormous hadn't just shifted in my chest.
On the way home, we found Mom's building dark on one side. A utility crew was working near the corner, and an orange barrier blocked the sidewalk. I called to make sure she had power. She did. She also wanted to know if I'd eaten enough, whether the restaurant had decent bread, and whether Luca was standing close enough to hear her interrogating me. He was, and he looked delighted.
At my door, we said goodnight without discussing the future as though one dinner could settle it. He stepped back after another kiss and let me unlock my own apartment. I stood in the hallway smiling at nothing, then heard my phone buzz.
The message was from Elena, who would never voluntarily interrupt a romantic evening unless something mattered.
The board's preliminary vendor screen had uncovered three versions of Harbor Bridge's nonprofit registration. The names of the officers differed. A consulting agreement appeared to have been signed months before the organization formally existed. Elena had also found that our data request had been copied to a company called Blue Finch Analytics, which had no reason to receive information about families seeking help.
I called her.
“Please tell me you've had dinner,” she said immediately.
“An excellent dinner. Now tell me what you found.”
“I don't have a conclusion. I have a list of discrepancies, and a lawyer's appointment for Monday.”
“Good. Send the documents to the board's secure account, not mine.”
“Already done. There's something else. A man came by after closing and asked whether we knew how to reach Ruth Bell.”
My stomach tightened. “Did he say why?”
“No. He wouldn't give a last name. He wore a tan suit and held an envelope.”
“Did you tell him anything?”
“Nothing. I said we don't confirm visitors. He left.”
I looked at the little book Luca had brought me. Its cover showed a theater saved by volunteers who'd spent years repairing what fire and neglect had damaged. I thought about how a building could look complete from the street while its supporting beams had rotted unseen.
“We need to log the contact,” I said. “And update our safety procedures. Nothing dramatic. Just careful.”
Elena agreed, and we ended the call.
I took off my earrings, put on pajamas, and sat by the window with the novel I had meant to read before bed. Across the street, someone was carrying a lamp into a new apartment. A little girl watched from the back seat of a car, impatient for the grown-ups to finish. Ordinary life went on. I was grateful for it, suddenly and fiercely.
The next morning, while making coffee, I found a small piece of paper tucked inside the used book. It wasn't a love note. The bookseller had written the name of a local historical archive and a telephone number, explaining that the Rialto restoration photographs had recently been cataloged there.
I read the note twice, then looked at Dad's picture on my shelf.
May you like
For years, our family history had felt like something that ended when he died. Now there was another small door opening, one that belonged to me and didn't require Luca's permission or anyone else's.
I made a note to call the archive on Monday. Whatever Harbor Bridge was hiding, I wasn't going to let it swallow every good thing in my life. Love deserved room. So did memory. So did a quiet breakfast before a difficult week.
