Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
I didn't sleep.
At three in the morning, I was still sitting at my kitchen table with the photograph in front of me.
My grandmother had always told me my mother died when I was two.
A car accident.
A wet mountain road.
A terrible tragedy.
She rarely spoke about it.
Whenever I asked questions, she kissed my forehead and told me some memories were too painful to carry twice.
I had believed her.
Why wouldn't I?
She was the person who raised me.
The person who loved me.
But the photograph raised questions I couldn't ignore.
The woman holding me looked nothing like the pictures of my supposed mother.
And beneath the inscription, almost invisible in the faded paper, was a date.
May 1998.
I had been born in November 1997.
The woman in the photograph couldn't be a stranger.
Not with the way she held me.
Not with the tears in her eyes.
At eight that morning, I called Francesca.
“Did Nonna ever mention a photograph?”
Silence.
Then she sighed.
“Did you receive the envelope?”
“Yes.”
“Sophia, your grandmother asked me not to explain anything until you read her letter.”
“When will it arrive?”
“I sent it yesterday.”
I gripped the phone.
“Francesca, please. Is the woman in the photograph my mother?”
A long pause.
“I think you need to speak to someone who knew her.”
“Who?”
“Alessandro Ricci.”
My blood ran cold.
At eleven, I called the number on the business card Marco had slipped into my coat pocket before I left the restaurant.
Alessandro answered on the second ring.
“Miss Bellandi.”
“How did you know it was me?”
“I recognized the number from the restaurant's contact list.”
I hated that he had access to it.
He seemed to hear the discomfort in my silence.
“I shouldn't have used that information without asking. I'm sorry.”
I took a breath.
“I have a photograph.”
He went quiet.
“Of whom?”
“A woman holding me when I was a baby.”
“What does she look like?”
“Dark hair. Green eyes. She's standing beside my grandmother.”
His voice changed.
“Does she have a small scar above her left eyebrow?”
I stared at the photograph.
“Yes.”
Alessandro exhaled slowly.
“Her name was Isabella Ricci.”
I felt the room tilt.
“Ricci?”
“Yes.”
“Was she related to you?”
He paused.
“She was my older sister.”
I couldn't speak.
Alessandro continued carefully.
“She disappeared twenty-eight years ago.”
My heart pounded.
“Disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“Was she my mother?”
He hesitated.
“I believe she may have been.”
I looked at the photograph again.
The woman holding me.
The tears in her eyes.
The way her arms wrapped around my tiny body.
I whispered, “Then why did my grandmother tell me she died?”
May you like
Alessandro's answer was barely audible.
“Because someone wanted the world to believe she was dead.”
