Chapter 4: Fifty-One Percent

The notary reached the villa at twenty to seven.

He was an old man in a rumpled gray coat, and he carried a leather case under one arm and a thermos under the other.

I met him at the front door in my school coat, before any servant could.

"Signorina," he said, and bowed his head to me. "Your grandmother would have been proud of that telephone call."

"Thank you for coming."

"I have waited four years to come to this house with this case."

He walked past the staff and into the hall.

My father was coming down the marble stairs in his dressing gown.

He saw the notary and stopped on the ninth step.

"Good morning, Baldassare," the notary said. "I am sorry for the hour. Your daughter has asked me to read her grandmother's will."

"My mother's will was read in July."

"Your mother's estate was read in July. Her will, in respect of one clause, was kept sealed until the named heir was sixteen."

For the first time, I saw my father's hand tighten on the banister.

"The library," he said.

We gathered there in ten minutes.

My father sat behind Nonna's desk, because he could not stand to sit anywhere else.

Ugo and Gaetano stood at the window, and my aunt and uncle took the sofa, still in their dressing gowns, wide awake.

Fiammetta came last.

She sat on the very edge of a chair by the door.

At seven o'clock exactly, the front bell rang.

The doctor came in with two broad men in white jackets behind him, and he smiled at my father.

"Signor Falconieri. Is this the young lady?"

"This is the young lady," said my father.

"No," said the notary, without raising his voice. "This is a shareholder of Falconieri Maritime, and she does not consent to any examination."

The doctor's smile faltered.

"A shareholder?"

"Please take your assistants and wait in the hall, doctor. You will be paid for your morning."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Daughter They Erased Came Back Untouchable from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.