Chapter 15 - MORETTI’S LAST BARGAIN
Salvatore’s cooperation did not make him harmless.
He had one final card.
A sealed document proving my father, Lorenzo, had once considered killing him.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
A plan existed.
Routes.
Schedules.
Names.
The press seized on it.
VALENTI PATRIARCH PLANNED MURDER.
ELENA’S FATHER NO HERO.
For days, reporters camped outside our home.
Elena hated it.
“They spent twenty-two years ignoring me and now they want breakfast interviews?”
“Welcome to fame.”
“I preferred poverty.”
“I can arrange that.”
She glared.
The documents were real.
My father had planned retaliation after learning Salvatore targeted us.
But he never carried it out.
Still, it destroyed the clean heroic image Elena had begun building in her mind.
“I wanted one decent parent,” she said.
“Mom.”
“I know.”
She looked at Lorenzo’s photograph.
“But Dad…”
“He was angry.”
“He planned murder.”
“Yes.”
“You sound calm.”
“I stopped idealizing him years ago.”
“I didn’t get years.”
That was the problem.
Elena was grieving people and meeting them at the same time.
Every new fact changed the dead.
She visited Vittorio in detention.
Alone.
When she returned, she told me what happened.
“He said Dad never intended to follow through.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I don’t know.”
“He may be right.”
“Or protecting him.”
“Yes.”
She looked exhausted.
“I’m tired of truth having footnotes.”
I understood.
Then Salvatore requested another meeting.
This time Elena went without me.
I hated it.
She insisted.
“You don’t need to protect me from a seventy-year-old man behind glass.”
“He’s dangerous.”
“So am I.”
She smiled.
I let her go.
Salvatore told her Lorenzo abandoned the murder plan after Maria confronted him.
She had said:
If protecting our children turns us into the people threatening them, then they have already won.
Elena asked why Salvatore kept that information hidden.
“Because I wanted Dante angry.”
“Why?”
“Angry men make mistakes.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m old.”
“That’s not remorse.”
“No.”
At least he remained honest.
Then Salvatore gave her a letter Lorenzo had written but never sent.
To Elena.
He wrote it one year after she disappeared.
My little moon,
I do not know where you are. I do not know if you are alive. Your mother believes you are, and because she is stronger than me, I have chosen to believe her.
If you ever read this, know one thing.
Your disappearance changed me in ways I am ashamed of.
I wanted revenge more than I wanted justice.
Your mother stopped me.
She reminded me that if you returned, I wanted to be a father you could still love.
So I walked away from blood.
I do not know whether you will ever come home.
But I will leave the porch light on.
Every night.
For as long as I live.
Elena brought the letter home.
She did not speak for an hour.
Then she walked outside.
I followed.
The porch light was on.
It had always been on.
I had never thought about why.
“Did he really keep it on every night?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“After Mom died?”
“Yes.”
“After he died?”
“I kept it on.”
She looked at me.
“Why?”
“I didn’t know.”
But I did now.
Some traditions were grief wearing ordinary clothes.
Elena sat on the front steps.
“I think I forgive Dad.”
I sat beside her.
“You can change your mind tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“And again next week.”
“I know.”
She rested her head against my shoulder.
“Dante?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for leaving the light on.”
I looked toward the street.
“I guess I always thought someone might need it.”
May you like
She squeezed my arm.
Someone had.
