Chapter 3 - LORENZO MORETTI CAME TO A PUBLIC LIBRARY
I chose the meeting place.
Not his house.
Not ours.
Detroit Public Library.
Main branch.
Saturday afternoon.
Mom insisted Aunt Lisa come.
Lorenzo agreed.
He arrived alone.
That mattered too.
No black cars at the entrance.
No men standing behind him.
Just Lorenzo in a dark coat holding two books.
He placed them on the table.
One was about Detroit architecture.
The other was a children’s board book about trucks.
I frowned.
“What’s that?”
“For Noah.”
“He can’t read.”
“Neither could you at one.”
I looked at Mom.
She looked away.
“Did you buy things for me?”
Lorenzo sat.
“For a child I didn’t know existed?”
“Before.”
“Oh.”
A tiny smile.
“No.”
I studied him.
“Are you really in the mafia?”
Aunt Lisa choked on coffee.
Mom whispered:
“Emily.”
Lorenzo almost smiled.
“That is a complicated question.”
“That means yes.”
“It means you are twelve.”
“Mom says that when she doesn’t want to answer.”
“I can see where you learned negotiation.”
He did not tell me details.
Good.
Instead, he said:
“I have done things I would not want you to copy.”
That was more honest than denial.
“Did you kill anyone?”
Mom stood.
“We’re done.”
Lorenzo immediately said:
“No.”
She stopped.
He looked at me.
“I am not discussing violence with you.”
“Because the answer is bad?”
“Because adults do not get to turn children into judges for decisions made before they were born.”
That irritated me.
But later I understood it.
I changed questions.
“Did you know about me?”
“No.”
“Would you have come?”
“Yes.”
“Would you have taken me from Mom?”
His face changed.
“No.”
Mom looked at him.
He continued.
“I might have tried to control too much.”
That surprised her.
“Back then?”
“Yes.”
“You admit that?”
“I’m older.”
“Not necessarily wiser.”
“Fair.”
Then I asked:
“Why were you so upset when you saw Noah?”
Lorenzo looked embarrassed.
“For one second, I thought Claire had hidden another child from me.”
Aunt Lisa laughed.
Mom did not.
“He’s my half-brother.”
“I know now.”
“His dad?”
Mom stiffened.
Noah’s father, Daniel Carter, had died eight months earlier in a workplace accident.
That was why our finances collapsed.
Life insurance was delayed.
His employer disputed parts of the claim.
Mom’s income alone could not carry rent, utilities, daycare, food.
Lorenzo became still.
“What company?”
Mom shook her head.
“No.”
“What company, Claire?”
“Moretti Logistics.”
The silence around the library table became absolute.
Lorenzo stared at her.
“What?”
Daniel had worked as a mechanic at a warehouse operated by one of Lorenzo’s legitimate companies.
He died after a loading platform failed.
Lorenzo’s face changed.
“His name was Daniel Carter?”
Mom nodded.
“I never connected—”
“Of course you didn’t.”
Her bitterness startled me.
“You own too much to know who dies under your roof.”
Lorenzo said nothing.
Then:
“Was the claim denied?”
“Delayed.”
“By whom?”
“Your insurer. Your company’s attorneys.”
Lorenzo stood.
Mom’s eyes narrowed.
“Do not fix this with one phone call.”
He looked at her.
“I’m not.”
“Then what?”
“I’m going to find out why the platform failed.”
That was the moment our story changed again.
I had texted a wrong number for milk.
But the man who received it was not only my biological father.
He owned the company connected to the accident that killed Noah’s father.
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And if Mom’s expression was right, she believed Daniel’s death was one more reason Lorenzo Moretti should stay out of our lives.
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