Chapter 2 - TEACH ME HOW TO SAY I’M SORRY
Roman stopped at Harper’s counter.
She folded her arms.
“If you’re here about last night, Grant is the one who insulted your mother.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Can we talk privately?”
“No.”
Roman blinked.
A truck driver three seats away stopped pretending not to listen.
Harper gestured around the nearly empty diner.
“This is private enough.”
For one extraordinary second, Roman Moretti almost smiled.
Then he reached into his coat.
Eddie made a strangled noise behind the grill.
Roman removed a notebook.
Harper stared.
“What’s that?”
“I need you to teach me something.”
“You drove from Manhattan to Queens for a lesson?”
“Yes.”
“What lesson?”
Roman hesitated.
It was the first time she had seen uncertainty on him.
“My mother was born deaf.”
“I gathered that.”
“My father refused to learn sign language.”
Harper’s humor disappeared.
Roman continued.
“He said interpreters existed for that.”
“That sounds charming.”
“It wasn’t.”
“What about you?”
“I learned a few signs when I was young.”
“How many?”
“Eat. Wait. Car. Home.”
Harper stared.
“That isn’t learning someone’s language.”
“I know.”
No defensiveness.
That surprised her.
“My mother adapted,” he continued. “She reads lips. Writes. Uses interpreters.”
“That doesn’t mean she should always have to.”
“I know that now.”
Harper looked at him more carefully.
Roman placed his hands on the counter.
“Last night someone humiliated my mother.”
His jaw tightened.
“I immediately knew how to frighten him.”
“That seems to be a talent.”
“But when I looked at my mother, I realized I didn’t know how to ask if she was okay.”
Harper said nothing.
Roman looked down at the notebook.
“I could threaten Grant in five different languages.”
Then he looked at her.
“I couldn’t comfort my mother in hers.”
The diner was silent.
Harper’s anger softened.
Only slightly.
“So?”
Roman raised his hands awkwardly.
“Teach me.”
“What?”
“How to apologize.”
Harper stared.
Roman Moretti.
The man half of New York believed had personally buried enemies beneath construction projects.
Standing inside a Queens diner asking an exhausted waitress to teach him how to apologize to his mother.
“What exactly do you want to say?”
He thought.
“I’m sorry I made you meet me halfway your whole life.”
Harper swallowed.
“That’s more than one sign.”
“I have time.”
“You’re holding your fingers wrong.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“Exactly.”
That time Roman did smile.
It transformed his entire face.
Harper immediately disliked that.
Dangerous men should not have good smiles.
Twenty minutes became forty.
Roman learned:
Mom.
Sorry.
Should.
Learn.
Before.
Want.
Do better.
His grammar was terrible.
His hand shapes stiff.
His facial expression even worse.
“You look constipated.”
“I’m concentrating.”
“ASL uses facial grammar.”
“I am using my face.”
“You’re threatening the furniture.”
Roman stared at her.
Harper corrected his eyebrows.
Again.
Eventually he could sign the meaning rather than translate every English word.
Mom.
I’m sorry.
I should have learned.
I want to do better.
He practiced twice.
Then again.
“Better,” Harper admitted.
Roman looked almost proud.
“That’ll be four ninety-five.”
“For what?”
Harper pointed to the untouched coffee Eddie had placed beside him.
Roman looked down.
Then left a five-dollar bill.
No absurd thousand-dollar tip.
No attempt to buy the diner.
Harper respected that more than she expected.
He reached the entrance.
The door opened.
Beatrice Moretti walked in.
Roman froze.
So did Harper.
Beatrice had a driver waiting outside but no visible security.
She spotted her son.
Then Harper.
Then Roman’s notebook.
Her eyebrows rose.
Roman looked like a teenager caught doing something embarrassing.
Beatrice walked toward him.
Roman raised his hands.
Clumsy.
Careful.
Mom.
Beatrice stopped.
I’m sorry.
Her expression changed.
I should have learned.
Beatrice covered her mouth.
I want to do better.
Tears filled her eyes.
Roman panicked.
“Why is she crying?”
Harper whispered:
“Good tears.”
Beatrice threw her arms around him.
Roman closed his eyes.
For one moment, Harper felt like an intruder.
Then Beatrice released Roman.
She signed.
Your accent is terrible.
Harper laughed.
Roman narrowed his eyes.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Beatrice continued.
Tell him he signs like a drunk penguin.
Harper shook her head.
“I enjoy breathing.”
Roman looked between them.
“She insulted me.”
“No proof.”
Beatrice smiled.
Then reached into her handbag.
A white envelope.
She gave it to Harper.
Roman frowned.
“What is that?”
Beatrice signed.
Harper’s smile disappeared.
“Mrs. Moretti…”
Beatrice repeated herself.
“What did she say?” Roman asked.
Harper looked at him.
“Your mother wants to hire me.”
“For what?”
“To interpret tomorrow.”
Roman’s expression hardened immediately.
“No.”
Beatrice crossed her arms.
Roman said something sharp in Italian.
His mother ignored him.
She signed to Harper.
He thinks because I cannot hear, I do not know when people hide things from me.
Harper’s stomach tightened.
Roman watched her face.
“What did she say?”
Harper hesitated.
Beatrice squeezed Harper’s wrist.
Then signed:
Someone is stealing from my foundation.
Harper stared.
Beatrice’s foundation supported Deaf and hard-of-hearing children.
Hearing technology.
ASL classes.
Family services.
Education.
Roman’s voice lowered.
“How much?”
Beatrice signed.
I don’t know.
Then:
But Lorenzo knows.
Roman became very still.
Lorenzo Moretti.
His cousin.
One of the most powerful men inside the extended Moretti organization.
Beatrice continued.
Tomorrow they want me to sign papers.
I will not sign what I cannot question.
Harper interpreted every word.
Roman’s face hardened.
“My mother has lawyers.”
Beatrice signed:
Lawyers speak for me.
I want someone to speak with me.
That silenced him.
Harper looked at the envelope.
Inside was five hundred dollars.
Two hours of interpreting.
More than Harper earned in three diner shifts.
Money mattered.
Rent mattered.
But what mattered more was Beatrice’s expression.
Fear.
Not for herself.
For something she had built.
Harper nodded.
“I’ll come.”
Roman looked at her.
“This is a mistake.”
Beatrice smiled.
Harper signed to her:
He says that whenever you have a good idea?
Beatrice laughed.
Roman sighed.
“I know when you’re mocking me now.”
“Then your education is progressing.”
Roman looked toward his mother.
Then at Harper.
“Tomorrow. Nine.”
He lowered his voice.
“Once you enter that house, you interpret only for my mother.”
Harper held his gaze.
“If someone says something to your mother, I interpret it.”
“That is what I said.”
“No.”
Harper leaned closer.
“You said only what you want her to hear.”
Roman stared.
She continued.
“If she asks, I translate everything.”
Beatrice watched them.
Then signed.
I definitely like her.
Roman recognized the sign for like.
He closed his eyes.
And Harper realized she had somehow been hired by one Moretti while annoying another.
May you like
She did not yet understand how dangerous both things would become.
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