Chapter 11

Celina’s story changed before the day was over.First, the display had been my idea. Then the lock had been a misunderstanding. Finally, speaking to Rosa in the guest wing, she admitted she had wanted me to miss my entrance.She hadn’t expected me to die.Rosa stood at the foot of the bed. I stood beside her.“Then why did you cover her face?”Celina gripped the blanket.“I was frightened.”“Of what had happened to Elena?”She said nothing.“Or of what would happen to you?”Celina began to cry. Rosa waited, but that was all she got.Later, she went to my mother’s house with copies of the records. Mom let her in. She would not let Luca come.I followed them into the kitchen.Rosa told her what Celina had said, without softening it.“She could have called for help,” Mom said.“Yes.”“Instead, she dressed my daughter up and sent her into that room.”Rosa lowered her head.Mom pushed the papers away. She wanted them left with her. She would read them when she could bear to.When Rosa retur

Chapter 12

The funeral director asked my mother whether I should be buried in my engagement dress.“No,” she said immediately.Luca, standing on the other side of the desk, looked up.Mom opened a garment bag. Inside was a blue dress I had worn to dinner with her the previous spring.I remembered that dinner. The restaurant had been too warm, and I had kept pushing up my sleeves. Mom had laughed because I still did it exactly as I had as a child.“That one,” she said.The funeral director wrote it down.Luca asked about the Vitti family plot.It was a question, not an instruction. Even so, my mother’s hand tightened on the garment bag.“Elena will be beside her father.”He nodded.Outside, Rosa handed him the ring a guest had given her after the ambulance left.“I don’t know what you want to do with this.”Luca opened the box.For a moment, I thought he might ask to put it on me before they closed the coffin.He shut the box.“She gave it back.”Rosa watched him.“She never said yes again.”His m

Chapter 13

My mother asked the guests not to bring white roses.By the morning of the funeral, the room was full of other flowers: yellow tulips, purple irises, a crooked bunch of daisies tied with kitchen string.The daisies came from the boy in the photograph Luca had found. His grandmother held his hand while he stood beside my coffin.“Is the picture still okay?” he whispered.His grandmother nodded through her tears.All morning, people brought my mother pieces of me she hadn’t known about.A colleague described the time I had stayed late to teach a new assistant how to clean her brushes properly. A neighbor remembered a damaged photograph I had refused to throw away.None of them called me the future Mrs. Vitti.Luca stood near the back. He listened to every story.Adrian had asked to speak. My mother agreed on the condition that he show her what he planned to say.He had crossed out most of the first draft.When he stood up, he held a single sheet of paper.“My sister was patient,” he bega

Chapter 14

The captains came to the estate two days after my funeral.They entered through the same doors as the engagement guests. This time, their men stayed outside and nobody brought flowers.Luca sat at the head of the dining table.Matteo took the chair to his right. The consigliere set two folders between them.One held the accounts of my death.The other was thicker.“You asked for time to bury her,” Matteo said. “We gave it to you.”Luca looked at the second folder.“How long have you been waiting to put that on my table?”Matteo did not pretend to misunderstand.“Longer than this week.”The captains remained seated. None looked surprised.I understood then that they had not come only for Celina.But she was brought in first.She wore the black dress she had requested for my funeral. My mother had refused to have her there. Her wedding ring turned between her fingers as she searched the table for an ally.“I never meant for this to happen.”The security chief played the recording.This t

Chapter 15

Before Luca left the estate, my mother came to collect the last of my belongings.She knew what had happened. Rosa had told her privately. Mom had listened, then asked when she could have my things.Now Luca met her beside the waiting car.“The workroom is packed. I checked every box.”She nodded to the driver to begin loading them.“I’ll understand if you never want to see me again,” Luca said.Mom adjusted the strap of her bag.“What do you want me to say to that?”“Nothing.”She looked at him until he lowered his eyes.“Then don’t make it another thing I have to carry.”He stepped away. She got into the car without looking back.At home, there were boxes of my belongings waiting in the spare room. Mom opened one that evening and found the mug I used in the workroom, its handle stained with paint.She washed it, then stopped trying to scrub away the stain.The next morning she drank her coffee from it.That was how the days began to change. Not all at once. A mug taken from a box. A

Chapter 16

My mother went to Florence the following spring.The studio had written after learning what happened. They offered to show her the place where I had worked, if she ever wanted to visit.She kept the letter for months before booking a flight.Adrian drove her to the airport. He arrived early and waited outside with the car.She carried a small suitcase and a photograph of the restored wedding portrait. The conservator had finished the work using my notes. My father’s face was clear again.At the studio, one of my old colleagues recognized the photograph before Mom explained it.“Elena showed us this,” she said. “She was so worried about getting it right.”Mom smiled through her tears.“She worried about everything she loved.”They walked through the rooms together. The colleague pointed out the table where I had fallen asleep, the window I liked, the drawer where someone still kept the pencils I had left behind.For the first time since my death, I saw my mother become curious about som