Chapter 14 - The Truth About Elena’s Final Night
The woman's name was Catherine Hayes.
Gabriel had married her nine years before meeting Marisol.
There was no divorce record.
Marisol swore Gabriel told her he was single.
For a moment, I thought we had uncovered another betrayal.
Then we found Catherine.
Alive.
Living in Vermont.
She was seventy-six.
When I called, she listened silently.
Then said:
“I've been waiting for one of Gabriel's daughters.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“About us?”
“Eventually.”
“Who are you?”
There was a long pause.
“Your father's first wife.”
Dominic and I traveled to meet her.
Catherine lived in a farmhouse surrounded by maple trees.
She welcomed us with tea as though we were ordinary visitors.
“You look like Marisol,” she told me.
“Everyone says I look like Elena.”
“That too.”
“You met her?”
Catherine nodded.
“Two weeks before she died.”
Dominic stiffened.
“Why?”
“Elena found me.”
Of course she had.
My sister had apparently spent her final months finding everyone except me.
The thought still hurt.
Catherine opened a drawer.
“Gabriel and I separated long before he met Marisol. We never divorced because…”
She smiled sadly.
“We were young and foolish and thought paperwork didn't matter.”
“What did Elena want?”
“The truth about Gabriel.”
Catherine explained that Gabriel hadn't been innocent.
He had helped Carlo and Marco build questionable enterprises.
He knew what he was involved in.
But after meeting Marisol and becoming a father, he wanted out.
“He changed because of you girls.”
“Did Marco kill him?” I asked.
“I don't know.”
Dominic watched her.
“Elena thought you knew something about her crash.”
Catherine's expression darkened.
“She called me that night.”
Dominic went still.
“What?”
“Thirty minutes before the accident.”
He sat down.
His face lost color.
“What did she say?”
“That someone had been following her.”
“Who?”
“She didn't know.”
Catherine reached into another drawer.
“I recorded the voicemail.”
Dominic stared.
“You kept it?”
“I thought someone might need it.”
She played the message.
Elena's voice filled the room.
“Catherine, it's me. I think I found the final connection. If I don't call you tomorrow, tell Dominic the crash wasn't an accident.”
Dominic covered his mouth.
The recording continued.
“And tell Elina…”
My heart stopped.
“…I'm sorry I waited.”
Silence.
Then the message ended.
I reached for Dominic's hand.
He held mine tightly.
Catherine gave investigators the recording.
Combined with Daniel's testimony and Marco's financial records, it filled gaps in the case.
Daniel eventually admitted Marco had ordered Elena followed.
The man driving the second vehicle that night had been instructed to frighten her into stopping.
He forced her off the road.
The intention, according to Daniel, had been intimidation.
The result was fatal.
It didn't matter whether Marco had ordered her death specifically.
His choices caused it.
Dominic listened to the confession once.
Then never again.
“Do you want to see him?” I asked.
Marco was awaiting trial.
“No.”
“You're sure?”
“Yes.”
“What would you say?”
Dominic looked at Leo playing on the floor.
“Nothing.”
That answer showed me how much he had changed.
Marco wanted importance.
Hatred.
Fear.
Dominic gave him nothing.
Elena's death became officially reclassified.
Her name was no longer attached to the word accident.
For Dominic, that mattered.
For me too.
But closure is a word people use when they want grief to behave logically.
It doesn't.
Finding the truth didn't bring Elena back.
It didn't give me childhood memories with her.
It didn't return eleven months to Leo.
It gave us something smaller.
Certainty.
And sometimes certainty is enough to stop a wound from growing.
One evening, Dominic and I stood at Elena's grave.
It was my first visit.
Her stone was simple.
ELENA ROMANO MORETTI
BELOVED WIFE. MOTHER. DAUGHTER.
Dominic placed flowers.
I placed one half of the joined locket against the stone.
“Hi,” I whispered.
I felt ridiculous.
Then emotional.
“I wish you'd come into the restaurant.”
Dominic stepped away, giving me privacy.
“I probably would've thought you were insane.”
I laughed through tears.
“But I would've listened.”
Wind moved through the trees.
“I don't know what I'm supposed to be to Dominic.”
I glanced toward him.
He wasn't listening.
Or pretended not to.
“I don't know what I'm supposed to be to Leo.”
I touched the stone.
“But I promise I'm not going anywhere.”
For the first time, saying it didn't feel frightening.
It felt true.
When we returned home, Marisol was waiting.
She held a box.
“What now?” I asked.
She smiled.
“Something good.”
Inside were home movies.
Old videotapes.
Elena and me together.
Before the separation.
We spent the entire night watching.
Two little girls chasing bubbles.
Fighting over crayons.
Holding hands.
Sleeping against each other.
Then one clip appeared.
We were almost three.
Elena stood beside me.
I couldn't hear what she said.
But little Elina laughed.
Then kissed her cheek.
Marisol cried.
Dominic looked away.
I reached toward the television.
There she was.
My sister.
Not a mystery.
Not a victim.
A little girl who once knew me better than anyone.
And somewhere deep inside, I realized I hadn't forgotten her completely.
The feeling Leo gave me the first night at Orelio—the strange familiarity, the instinct to hold him closer—had come from somewhere.
Maybe memory lives in places the mind cannot reach.
May you like
Maybe love does too.
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