Chapter 12 - THE WOMAN ADRIAN THOUGHT ABANDONED HIM
Sofia Moretti lived in a white cottage near Saratoga Springs.
No gates.
No guards.
No visible luxury.
The woman who had once been photographed beside one of New York’s most feared men now grew tomatoes and taught piano lessons.
She opened the door and looked at my pregnant stomach first.
Then at my face.
“You have his stubborn expression.”
I almost laughed.
“I’m told mine came first.”
She smiled.
I liked her immediately.
That seemed to be becoming a Moretti-family problem.
We sat in her kitchen.
Sofia explained everything.
After her kidnapping, she demanded Adrian’s father leave criminal life.
He refused.
She planned to take Adrian and disappear.
His father intercepted the plan.
Threatened to accuse her of endangering Adrian.
Threatened her family.
Then sent her away.
“For years, I tried to contact him.”
“What happened?”
“His father blocked everything.”
After his father died, Salvatore continued.
Letters returned.
Calls intercepted.
Eventually Sofia believed Adrian had chosen the Moretti world.
“So you stopped trying?”
“I stopped entering his life.”
Not the same thing.
She followed his career.
Watched interviews.
Collected newspaper clippings.
Then she learned about me.
“How?”
“Isabella.”
Of course.
“What did you think?”
Sofia’s expression became sad.
“I was happy he loved someone.”
“Secretly.”
“Yes.”
She looked down.
“That worried me.”
I almost laughed from pain.
“Everyone saw it except me.”
“No.”
She reached across the table.
“You saw it first. You simply hoped love would make him brave.”
That was painfully accurate.
“Why did you want to meet me first?”
“Because if Adrian sees me, he will become sixteen again.”
My throat tightened.
“And?”
“I needed to know whether you wanted to be anywhere near that.”
Nobody had ever asked me that about Adrian.
Did I want to carry part of his pain?
Not owe it.
Not fix it.
Choose it.
“I don’t know what we are.”
“You’re divorced.”
I smiled.
“Very observant.”
Sofia smiled too.
“You still love him.”
Apparently subtlety was not genetic in the Moretti women.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I need to know love won’t cost me myself again.”
She nodded.
“Then don’t give yourself away.”
Simple.
Hard.
True.
I called Adrian from the car.
“Can you drive upstate tomorrow?”
“Why?”
“I want you to meet someone.”
He heard something in my voice.
“Claire.”
“Yes?”
“Who?”
I almost told him.
Then decided some revelations deserved a door opening.
“Trust me.”
Silence.
Three years earlier, those words had belonged to Adrian.
Trust me.
Meaning: accept what I won’t explain.
Now I gave him the choice.
“You can say no.”
He took a breath.
“I’ll come.”
The next afternoon, Adrian walked up Sofia’s porch steps.
She opened the door.
He stopped.
Everything in his face disappeared.
Power.
Control.
Language.
“Mom?”
Sofia began crying.
Adrian did not move.
Then she said:
“I tried to take you with me.”
He broke.
I turned away.
Some moments are too private even when you helped create them.
They spoke for four hours.
I sat outside beneath a maple tree.
When Adrian finally emerged, his eyes were swollen.
He sat beside me.
Neither of us spoke.
Then he whispered:
“My whole life was built on men deciding what truths women were allowed to know.”
I looked at him.
“Yes.”
He laughed once through tears.
“And I did the same thing to you.”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
No defense.
Then:
“I don’t want to be that man anymore.”
I looked toward the house.
“Then don’t.”
He stared at me.
“You make everything sound simple.”
“No.”
I touched my stomach.
“I make it sound like a choice.”
Two weeks later, my contractions started early.
At thirty-four weeks.
I called Adrian from the ambulance.
He answered on the first ring.
May you like
And for the first time since our marriage began, I said the words without fear.
“I need you.”
