Chapter 2 - THE HOUSE WHERE NOBODY LISTENED
The Moretti estate sat behind iron gates in the Hudson Valley, surrounded by gardens that looked too perfect to belong to real people.
I arrived in my best navy coat carrying a canvas bag, a portable keyboard, and the kind of anxiety that made my fingers cold.
A security guard searched the bag.
“It's a keyboard,” I said.
“Procedure.”
“Are you worried I'm going to attack someone with middle C?”
He didn't smile.
The housekeeper did.
Her name was Rosa Bellini, a woman in her sixties with kind eyes and the exhausted patience of someone who had spent decades cleaning up rich people's mistakes.
“Mr. Leo is waiting in the library,” she told me.
“Is his father there?”
“Mr. Moretti is working.”
Of course he was.
The library was enormous, with dark wooden shelves, leather chairs, and tall windows overlooking a lake.
Leo sat beneath a window, arranging blue glass stones into careful rows.
He didn't look up when I entered.
“Hi, Leo. It's Clara.”
No response.
I placed my keyboard on a side table.
“I'm going to sit over here. You don't have to talk to me.”
He moved a stone.
I waited.
After several minutes, he said, “Your dress is different.”
“Today I'm wearing blue on the inside.”
He looked at my coat.
“That's navy.”
“You're right.”
“Not soft blue.”
“No. I couldn't find my soft-blue dress this morning.”
He considered that.
Then moved another stone.
“Do you know the difference between navy and cobalt?”
“I know some differences. You probably know more.”
He glanced at me.
“Cobalt is brighter.”
“Then you'll have to teach me.”
For the next twenty minutes, we discussed colors.
Not music.
Not dancing.
Colors.
When I asked if he'd like to hear the keyboard, he said no.
So I didn't play.
At five o'clock, Dante appeared in the doorway.
“How did it go?”
Leo didn't answer.
I said, “We talked about blue.”
Dante looked confused.
“For an hour?”
“Yes.”
He glanced at the untouched keyboard.
“You didn't play?”
“Leo didn't want music today.”
Dante looked toward his son.
“Leo?”
The boy was arranging stones.
“Miss Clara knows the wrong cobalt,” he said.
I grinned.
“Apparently.”
Dante stared.
Then something extraordinary happened.
He smiled.
Not the polished expression he'd worn at the wedding.
A real smile.
Small and startled, as though he'd forgotten he could.
After Leo went upstairs, Dante invited me into his office.
“I'd like to hire you for three afternoons a week.”
“I'm not a licensed music therapist,” I said. “My degree is unfinished. I can offer piano lessons and music activities, but I won't pretend to provide clinical treatment.”
“Understood.”
“Leo needs qualified professionals involved in his support plan.”
“He has them.”
“Then I'd like to coordinate with them, with his agreement and yours.”
Dante nodded.
I named a reasonable hourly rate.
He offered five times as much.
I stared.
“That's excessive.”
“It's what I can afford.”
“That's not how pricing works.”
He leaned back.
“Most people don't negotiate downward.”
“Most people probably don't tell you no.”
He watched me.
Then said, “You'd be surprised.”
Before I left, Rosa pulled me aside.
“Be careful, dear.”
“Of what?”
Her eyes flickered toward the staircase.
“Mr. Moretti isn't the only person who makes decisions in this house.”
“Who else?”
She lowered her voice.
“His sister-in-law, Isabella.”
I remembered the wedding.
A beautiful woman in silver standing beside the boys who mocked Leo.
“Why?”
Rosa's expression darkened.
“Because Leo's happiness has never been convenient for everyone.”
That night, as I left the estate, I noticed a black SUV parked beyond the gates.
Its headlights were off.
But someone inside was photographing my car.
May you like
I told myself I was imagining things.
I was wrong.
