Chapter 2 - Ninety Days and a Thousand Small Lies
"Before you ask about that necklace," I said, "you should know I'm not proud of what I did."
Alessandro remained standing with Mia in his arms. The conference room beyond his desk still glowed with an unanswered message from Zurich. He didn't look at it.
"Sit, Elena."
I perched on the edge of a leather chair that probably cost more than my monthly rent. My daughter's little shoes rested against his sleeve. He kept watching the necklace but said nothing about it yet, as if he had decided to let me finish one impossible confession before demanding another.
"Three months ago, I had a daycare arrangement," I began. "A neighbor watched Mia while I worked afternoons. Then her husband had a stroke, and she had to leave town. Every licensed place I called wanted a deposit I didn't have. One told me they could put us on a waiting list for next spring."
I tried to sound practical. Practical was how I had survived the year. But the memory of those first frightened mornings brought a tremor to my voice.
"I asked the staffing agency for different hours. They said your household had specifically requested someone available before sunrise. If I couldn't meet the schedule, they'd find someone who could. I was already two weeks behind on rent."
"You could have asked my household manager."
"I did."
He stared at me. "And?"
"Mrs. Vell warned me that this residence wasn't a family shelter. She said personal complications weren't your concern."
A muscle moved beside Alessandro's jaw. "Did you speak to me?"
"You walked past me every morning with three phones ringing. You never knew my name until today."
He opened his mouth, then closed it. The silence that followed wasn't comfortable, but it was more honest than anything I had expected.
I told him about the first day. I had dressed Mia in a knitted yellow sweater, tucked her into a carrier, and taken the service elevator while the building was waking. Raymond had spotted us immediately. I had expected him to escort me outside. Instead, he had checked the stairwell for drafts and shown me a quiet corner where the laundry machines wouldn't wake her.
"She can't stay there forever," he'd warned.
"Just until I figure something out," I'd promised.
That was ninety days ago.
There had been little acts of kindness along the way. Lucia, who cleaned an apartment below the penthouse, left a bag of baby clothes outside my locker after her granddaughter outgrew them. Rosa at the market would take Mia for ten minutes so I could choose produce without juggling a stroller. The produce driver, Mr. Gallo, started delivering bananas specifically because my daughter liked smashing them into every available surface.
Nobody called it a secret society. None of us had time for that sort of romance. They were tired people helping another tired person reach Friday.
"And while all these people were taking care of you," Alessandro said, "my payroll department was paying an agency that couldn't give you a schedule compatible with keeping your baby safe."
"It's not your fault I lost childcare."
"No," he replied. "But I own the building. I approve the budgets. There may be a difference between causing a problem and choosing not to notice it."
He sounded angry. I couldn't tell whether the anger was aimed at me or himself.
I pulled a crumpled envelope from my pocket. It held the last reminder from the hospital where Daniel had died. The balance wasn't enormous by the standards of the room we sat in. It was enormous by mine. I'd been sending twenty dollars whenever I could, mainly to feel as though I wasn't abandoning him a second time.
"Her father died before she was born," I said. "We'd just found an apartment with a window big enough for plants. We were arguing about names. He wanted to call her Stella, after a constellation he insisted he could see from our fire escape."
"What happened to him?"
"A sudden heart condition. One morning he kissed me goodbye and left for work. That afternoon I was signing papers I couldn't understand."
I looked at Mia. Her eyelashes rested against her cheeks. She was entirely unaware that the strangers around her were discussing a man she would someday know only through photographs and stories.
"After he died, people told me to move in with family. I don't have any. My mother died years ago, and my father was a stranger long before that. Daniel's mother lives out of state and is sick herself. I couldn't ask her to raise my child."
Alessandro finally sat opposite me, moving carefully so Mia wouldn't wake. "What was Daniel's full name?"
"Daniel Rossi."
Something unreadable crossed his face, but he let me continue.
I admitted how often I had been close to giving up. On my worst day, a supervisor found me asleep for seven seconds against a stack of warm towels. I dreamed Daniel was sitting beside me, telling me to make sure Mia ate before I went back to work. Then the elevator chimed and the dream ended.
"I made myself a rule," I said. "If she was ever unsafe here, I'd leave, whether or not I had money. She stayed in a gated play area, and somebody was always nearby. Today I went to get more detergent. I thought she was asleep. She's never crossed the hall before."
"She seems ambitious," Alessandro murmured.
I stared at him. He had almost made a joke. It felt impossible that humor could exist in the same room as my fear.
"You can fire me," I said. "But don't blame Raymond or the others. If you need to make an example of somebody, choose me."
He looked down at the sleeping child. "My father used to say that loyalty means people carry out your instructions even when you're not looking. He never considered the possibility that they might be loyal to something better than your instructions."
Then he finally reached toward the silver at Mia's throat. He stopped before touching it and looked at me.
"May I see her necklace?"
I nodded. "Carefully. It was Daniel's."
He slid the pendant into the palm of his hand. It was a little silver swallow with one wing slightly bent, dull from years of being worn against skin.
May you like
Alessandro made a sound I had never heard from another human being: the sharp, involuntary breath of someone encountering a person he thought was dead.
"Where," he whispered, "did Daniel get this?"
