He Denied Our Daughter, Now He Begs for Us novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Date on the Agreement

Giacomo's lawyer brings Moira a cashier's check and an agreement. Gianna reads the date aloud: three weeks before the birth. Moira keeps the check and signs nothing, and Giacomo returns alone and lifts Daisy from the bassinet as leverage.

Giacomo's lawyer arrived at seven the next morning with a leather folder and a cup of coffee he didn't offer me.

I had slept two hours.

Daisy was in the plastic bassinet at my side, and Gianna was in the next bed with her son, pretending to read a magazine.

"Mrs. Ferraro, my congratulations," the lawyer said. "Mr. Ferraro wants you to be comfortable."

He set a bank envelope on my tray table.

Inside was a cashier's check made out to me for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

I read the number twice.

"That's yours, with Mr. Ferraro's gratitude," the lawyer said. "There is one more small matter."

He laid a three-page agreement beside the check and clicked a pen.

I read the first page while he waited.

The child's father was to be described as unknown.

I would never claim her as a Ferraro, never use the name, never ask the Family for anything on her behalf.

I would leave the apartment within a month and not speak of the marriage.

"He wants me to sign away my daughter's father," I said.

"He wants to protect everyone involved."

I turned to the last page.

There was a date in the corner, typed above the signature line.

I read it and looked up.

"This was written on the fourteenth," I said. "That's three weeks ago."

The lawyer looked at his coffee.

"Let me see that," Gianna said.

She had put her magazine down.

I held the page out across the gap between the beds, and she took it with a hand that wasn't steady.

She read the date.

Then she read it again with her finger under the numbers.

"Three weeks ago, I was in the kitchen with Giacomo," she said. "He hand-fed me soup because my ankles were swollen."

Nobody answered her.

"He told me she was a widow," she said, quieter. "He told me he paid her rent out of kindness."

"I paid his rent," I said. "For six years."

Gianna's mouth closed.

She handed the page back without looking at me.

The lawyer cleared his throat. "The payment depends on the signature, Mrs. Ferraro."

I picked up the cashier's check.

"This is a cashier's check," I said. "It's made out to me. The bank doesn't ask if I signed anything."

"Mr. Ferraro will be very displeased."

"Then tell him I took the money."

He stared at me.

I tucked the check inside Daisy's blanket, under her feet, where nobody would reach for it without touching her.

"I sold my mother's bracelet and closed my business to cover his debts," I said. "He owes me more than this. Tell him it's the first payment."

I held the pen out to him.

"I'm not signing."

He took the pen, closed the folder, and left with the agreement under his arm.

The room was quiet.

Gianna sat very straight, with Rocco asleep in the crook of her arm.

"Whatever you think I knew," she said, "I didn't."

"I believe you," I said.

It was true.

It didn't change anything.

An hour later two men in dark suits came for Gianna.

One of them was her father, a heavy man with a gold ring tight on his finger.

He took one look at me and said nothing.

They wheeled her out to a private suite on the top floor, and the hospital put a different woman in her bed.

She was asleep.

I was alone with Daisy when the door opened again at nine.

Giacomo had changed his coat.

He closed the door behind him and turned the lock.

"You took my check," he said.

"I earned it."

"You'll hand it back, and you'll sign."

"No."

He looked at the bassinet.

I saw his face change.

I had waited nine months for him to look at her like that, and he did it now, with his hand reaching down.

He lifted her out of the blanket.

She was so small in his arms.

He held her head in the palm of his hand, and she opened her eyes and looked straight up at him.

For a moment I thought he might say her name.

"Give her to me," I said.

"Sit down, Moira."

He carried her to the window and then back toward the door, one step at a time.

"I'm going to walk her out to the car," he said. "I'll tell the adviser you handed her to me, because you couldn't feed her. A child with no page and a mother with no home. Who do you think the Family believes?"

"Put her back."

"Sign the agreement."

He had his free hand on the lock.

"Or she leaves with me, and you can explain it to the nurses from the bed."

My legs were shaking.

I got out of the bed anyway, and the stitches pulled so hard I saw white.

I was across the room before he finished the sentence.

He had the door open.

The corridor was full of nurses.

I took a breath and screamed his name.

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