Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO HAD STOPPED EATING
I expected Alessandro Moretti to fire me.
Instead, he ate the cookie.
Not politely.
Not to humor Emma.
He took one small bite, chewed slowly, and looked down at the broken half in his hand as though he could not remember the last time anyone had given him something without wanting anything in return.
Emma smiled.
“See?”
Alessandro lifted one eyebrow.
“See what?”
“You’re better.”
“I ate half an inch of cookie.”
“That’s better.”
I closed my eyes.
“Emma, sweetheart, please come here.”
This time Alessandro did not stop me when I lifted her from the chair.
I tucked Mr. Rabbit beneath her arm and prepared to apologize my way straight back to unemployment.
“My name is Mara Ellis,” I said. “The agency sent me this morning. I understand if you want me removed from the property.”
Alessandro studied me.
“You think I fire employees because their children give me cookies?”
“I don’t know what you fire employees for.”
That almost-smile returned.
“Neither do half the people working here.”
A knock sounded behind us.
A tall man in a charcoal suit entered without waiting for permission.
He was perhaps forty, handsome in the polished way expensive restaurants and private clubs seemed to manufacture. Dark hair. Perfect tie. A silver watch that flashed when he moved.
His eyes went first to Alessandro.
Then to me.
Then to Emma.
His expression hardened.
“What is this?”
Alessandro’s face became unreadable.
“Breakfast, apparently.”
The man ignored the joke.
“There’s a child in your office.”
“I noticed.”
He looked at me.
“Who are you?”
“Mara Ellis. Housekeeping.”
“I asked the agency for professional staff.”
I felt heat rise into my face.
Before I could answer, Alessandro spoke.
“Luca.”
One word.
Quiet.
The man stopped.
Alessandro continued.
“She works here.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“For twenty-three minutes.”
“Twenty-seven now.”
Emma held out Mr. Rabbit.
“He’s Bunny.”
Luca stared at her.
Emma stared back.
Then she whispered to me, loudly enough for everyone to hear, “He looks mad.”
Alessandro turned toward the window.
His shoulders moved once.
I realized he was suppressing a laugh.
Luca did not.
“I’ll have someone escort them downstairs.”
“No.”
Luca looked at Alessandro.
“No?”
“The child stays until her mother’s shift ends.”
“That is not appropriate.”
“It is my house.”
Something passed between them.
Not friendship.
Not exactly.
Something older.
Heavier.
Luca eventually nodded.
“Fine.”
He crossed to Alessandro’s desk and began reviewing documents as though the conversation had never happened.
“This needs your signature before eleven.”
Alessandro glanced at the folder.
“What is it?”
“Port authority restructuring.”
“I’ll read it.”
“You read it last night.”
“I’ll read it again.”
Luca leaned closer.
“You haven’t been sleeping.”
“You’ve become observant.”
“You’ve barely eaten in three days.”
“I’ve become less hungry.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
Luca looked at the untouched lunch tray, then at the silver medication case.
“You took your morning medication?”
“Yes.”
Something about the answer caught my attention.
Not Alessandro’s voice.
Luca’s relief.
It lasted only a second.
Then he looked at me and said, “You can go.”
I left.
But I remembered it.
For the next week, Emma remained in the staff room whenever I could keep her there.
Which was almost never.
She discovered that the Moretti estate contained endless hallways, a sunroom full of plants, a kitchen staff willing to provide strawberries, and one terrifying man in a wheelchair who apparently had no defense against a three-year-old carrying crayons.
Every morning she visited Alessandro.
Every morning I apologized.
By the fourth day he stopped pretending the visits surprised him.
Emma brought him pictures.
Mostly circles.
She insisted some were cats.
One was apparently Chicago.
Another was me.
Alessandro asked why I had six arms.
“So Mama can do everything,” Emma explained.
That silenced him.
On Friday, I was polishing the shelves in his office while Emma colored on the rug.
A nurse named Paul entered with Alessandro’s medication.
Paul was calm, professional, and one of the few employees who did not look frightened when Alessandro spoke.
“Blood pressure first.”
Alessandro rolled his eyes.
“You people measure it as though I’m planning an escape.”
“With respect, Mr. Moretti, if you managed to escape in that chair, half the security team would resign.”
“They should.”
Paul smiled and wrapped the cuff around his arm.
The reading made his smile disappear.
“What?”
“Low again.”
“How low?”
Paul told him.
I did not know enough medicine to understand the number, but I understood Paul’s expression.
“Any dizziness?”
“Only whenever people ask if I’m dizzy.”
“Nausea?”
“Yes.”
“Blurred vision?”
Alessandro hesitated.
“Yes.”
Paul opened the silver case.
Inside were several medications separated into compartments.
He checked each label.
“Dr. Mercer needs to review this.”
“He reviewed it Monday.”
“I know.”
“Then give me the pills.”
Paul did.
Alessandro swallowed them with water.
Twenty minutes later, while I dusted the bookshelves, he dropped a pen.
It struck the floor.
He stared at it.
I expected him to reach down.
He did not.
His right hand had begun trembling.
“Mr. Moretti?”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
His eyes moved toward me.
Most people probably apologized when he looked at them like that.
I did not.
I had spent the previous three years raising a toddler alone.
Intimidation had lost much of its effectiveness.
“You’re pale.”
“I’m Italian. This is offensive.”
Emma looked up from her crayons.
“You’re gray.”
Alessandro sighed.
“Thank you, Emma.”
Then his head dropped back against the wheelchair.
His eyes closed.
I crossed the room.
“Mr. Moretti?”
Nothing.
“Alessandro?”
That got no reaction either.
I reached for the call button near his desk.
His hand suddenly caught my wrist.
Weakly.
“Don’t.”
“You almost passed out.”
“I’m tired.”
“You’re sick.”
“I have a spinal cord injury, Mara. Sick is relative.”
I lowered my voice.
“This is more than that.”
For a second, something in his expression changed.
He knew.
That frightened me more than denial would have.
“How long?” I asked.
“How long what?”
“Have you been getting worse?”
Silence.
Emma climbed to her feet.
She walked over and placed Mr. Rabbit on Alessandro’s lap.
“You need Bunny.”
He looked down at the stuffed animal.
Then at me.
“Three months.”
“What?”
“The dizziness. Weakness. Nausea. Three months.”
“Does your doctor know?”
“My doctor says recovery is complicated.”
“Does your doctor know it happens after your medication?”
His eyes sharpened.
I wished I could pull the question back.
But I had already seen it.
Every morning, Alessandro seemed tired.
After the silver medication case arrived, he became worse.
Sometimes dramatically worse.
Alessandro glanced toward the closed office door.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because I clean this room.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Yes, it does.”
I lowered my voice further.
“At nine, you take medicine. At nine-thirty, your hands start shaking. Yesterday you nearly fell forward. Wednesday you slept through a meeting. Tuesday you told Paul the lights looked blurry.”
Alessandro did not speak.
Emma hugged his arm.
“Medicine yucky.”
I almost smiled.
Then she added:
“The blue one smells bad.”
Every muscle in Alessandro’s face changed.
“What blue one?”
Emma pointed toward the silver medication case.
“That one.”
I opened it.
The compartments contained white pills.
Yellow capsules.
No blue tablets.
“There’s nothing blue.”
Emma frowned.
“Yes.”
“When?”
She pointed toward the doorway.
“Yesterday.”
My skin prickled.
“Who had it?”
She thought very hard.
Then she smiled because she remembered.
“Uncle Luca.”
The office went silent.
Alessandro looked at me.
I looked at the medicine case.
And before either of us could say another word, the door opened.
Luca stood there.
May you like
In his hand was a small blue prescription bottle.
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