The Moretti Daughter They Denied novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Left-Handed at the Table
Nora overhears her family trade her to the Ravello boss and says yes to his face; the boss himself walks in and tells her to pack nothing.
The day the doctor said leukemia, I felt relief.
I wasn't really a Moretti anyway. If I died, I wouldn't owe anyone anything.
When I was six, my sister Carmela and I fought over a stuffed bear.
Antonella took me into the pantry, wiped the jam off my chin with her thumb, and spoke gently, so I would understand.
"You are not our child, tesoro. Everything in this house is something we give you out of kindness."
After that, I never asked for anything again.
Carmela got new dresses. I wore her old school uniforms.
Carmela got piano lessons. I washed dishes at the family restaurant for my lunch money, and I listened to her lessons through the wall.
The doctor told me a stem-cell transplant was my best chance, and that a parent or a full sibling might be a match.
I told no one in the Moretti house.
I hired a detective to find the family I was born into, and I used seven years of savings to prepay the cheapest cremation in the county.
Then it was Sunday, and I was twenty-eight, and there were fourteen of us at the long table.
Antonella always seats me at the far end, next to the kitchen door.
My father Salvatore and I are the only left-handers in the family, and she says our elbows get in the way.
I didn't mind. From the end of the table I could see everyone's plate and nobody could see mine.
Salvatore's men and their wives ate, and Carmela filmed her tiramisu for her followers.
When Antonella looked away, Salvatore slid the last cannoli down the table onto my plate.
He did it every Sunday. I had never asked him why.
"Nora," he said after the plates were cleared. "Bring me the Table's book from the study. The restaurant's."
I went down the hall.
The study door was open a hand's width, and I heard Antonella before I saw her.
"Matteo Ravello wants the eldest daughter, Salvatore. Nora is the eldest."
"She's a girl who lives under my roof," my father said.
"She lives under it out of kindness. She isn't a Moretti. Give him the stray, he gets his bride, the war ends, and Carmela keeps her face."
Carmela laughed softly.
"Nobody's going to miss her, Papa. Who else would do the pots?"
I stood with the book pressed against my chest.
My father was quiet for a long time.
"It's one year," he said at last. "Ravello promised a year."
That was all. He didn't say no.
I put the ledger on the hall table, and I walked back to the dining room with my hands steady.
For twenty-eight years I had been waiting for someone to say no for me.
Nobody had. So I would do it myself.
Salvatore came in behind me and stood at the head of the table, and he tapped his glass.
The fourteen of them went quiet.
"Family," he said. "After nine years, the Ravellos and the Morettis will have peace."
He looked at the tablecloth.
"Nora is going to marry Matteo Ravello."
Nobody moved, and then everyone smiled at once.
"We're so proud of her," Antonella said, and she reached to squeeze my hand.
I stood up before she could.
"Yes," I said.
My chair scraped on the floor.
Carmela's phone was already up, pointed at me.
I took my house key off my ring and set it on the tablecloth beside the cannoli.
"Everything in this house was given to me out of kindness," I said. "I'm leaving all of it here."
My voice was calm, and I let the whole table hear it.
"I'll sign whatever you need tomorrow. After that I owe the Morettis nothing."
Salvatore's mouth opened. He lifted his left hand an inch off the table, and then put it down.
"Nora," he said.
It was the first time in years he had said my name in front of people.
The front door opened.
It had not rung. Two men in dark coats came in first, and they stopped on either side of the dining room entrance.
The man behind them was tall, and he wore a charcoal suit, and he didn't take off his gloves.
The fourteen people at the table stopped talking.
My father stood. "Matteo."
"Salvatore." Matteo Ravello didn't look at him. He looked down the length of the table, past the wives and the candles, to the end by the kitchen door.
"Which one of you is Nora?"
"I am," I said.
He looked at the key on the tablecloth, and then at my face.
"Pack nothing," he said. "You're coming with me tonight."
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