Chapter 4 - THE FIRST THING I AGREED TO
I agreed to the DNA test.
Not because Adrian pressured me.
Because Mom's note had.
I hired my own attorney first.
Her name was Rebecca Cho, and the first thing she told me was:
“Do not sign anything relating to inheritance, publicity rights, confidentiality, family businesses, or trusts until we know what exists.”
“I don't want their money.”
“Good.”
She closed her notebook.
“That makes my job easier, not unnecessary.”
The DNA samples were taken at an independent medical laboratory in Cambridge.
Me.
Sofia.
Adrian.
Lucy was not tested.
She did not need to be.
Afterward, Sofia asked if she could speak to me.
Rebecca remained.
Adrian offered to leave.
I told him to stay.
Sofia sat across the conference table and placed a photograph between us.
My mother at perhaps sixteen.
Ballet shoes over one shoulder.
“She hated pointe shoes,” Sofia said.
Mom had told me the same thing.
“She said they turned feet into punishment devices.”
Sofia smiled through tears.
“Exactly.”
I hated how badly I wanted more.
“What happened?”
Sofia's smile disappeared.
“Our father was Antonio Vale.”
I knew the name.
Anyone who had grown up around Boston in the nineties had heard it.
Officially, construction and shipping.
Unofficially, enough criminal allegations to fill newspapers for decades.
He died without ever being convicted of the worst things people said he did.
Sofia continued.
“Elena hated everything about that life.”
“Then why didn't she just leave?”
Sofia looked at Adrian.
Then at me.
“In our family, leaving was rarely just leaving.”
That was not an answer.
Rebecca intervened.
“Was Rose—or Elena—ever reported missing?”
“Yes.”
“What did the investigation conclude?”
“That she left voluntarily.”
“Did you believe that?”
Sofia took too long.
“Yes.”
I leaned forward.
“Then why did you cry like you'd seen a ghost?”
Her eyes filled.
“Because believing someone escaped and knowing they survived are two different things.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Adrian looked at his mother.
“You knew she ran?”
Sofia turned to him.
“I knew more than I told you.”
His expression changed.
There was a family secret inside the family secret.
Rebecca ended the meeting before emotion turned into accidental disclosure.
That evening, Adrian sent me scanned copies of everything Sofia had authorized him to share.
A school photograph.
A dance recital program.
A handwritten melody.
La Stella Cadente.
Composed by Lucia Vale for daughters Sofia and Elena.
My grandmother.
I stared at the sheet music.
At the bottom, in pencil:
For my girls. If you become lost, follow the same song home.
Mom had played those notes whenever she was frightened.
When my father left.
When rent was late.
When chemotherapy made her too sick to sleep.
May you like
All those years, I thought it was a lullaby.
It had been directions.
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