Chapter 12 - The Meeting They Hid From Me
Sofia had met Rosa.
Not once.
Three times.
Rosa’s recording explained everything.
Sofia found her through old hospital employment records.
She arrived alone.
No Dominic.
No Bellini guards.
No lawyers.
Rosa refused to tell her where I lived.
At first.
“She cried,” Rosa said.
“So did I.”
Sofia brought photographs.
Leo’s ultrasound.
Her wedding.
Elena.
The family I had never known.
Rosa showed Sofia photographs of me.
School plays.
Graduation.
My first terrible waitress uniform.
Sofia apparently laughed at that one.
Then she asked the question Rosa feared most.
“Can I meet her?”
Rosa said no.
Not yet.
Because someone had followed Sofia to Maine.
They both realized the search had become dangerous.
Rosa made Sofia promise she would not approach me until they knew who was watching.
Sofia kept the promise.
It cost her the chance to meet me.
I wanted to be angry at Rosa again.
But grief kept getting there first.
Then the recording shifted.
“Sofia left something here for you.”
Rosa looked toward the camera.
“Not money.”
I almost laughed.
Good.
“She said you’d already have too many people trying to give you money.”
That sounded exactly like a sister I wished I had known.
The Maine house was small.
White siding.
Blue shutters.
Near enough to the ocean that everything smelled faintly of salt.
Dominic drove separately.
He did not assume he was invited inside.
I noticed.
I invited him.
Leo came too.
Inside the bedroom closet was a cedar box.
Sofia’s letter sat on top.
Dear Alina,
I have rewritten this opening eleven times because “Dear Sister” feels too intimate for someone I’ve only watched argue with a bartender.
I laughed and cried at once.
She told me she knew almost nothing about my life.
She did not want me dragged into hers.
She did not want me asked to become Bellini.
Or Rinaldi.
Or Sofia 2.0.
That last phrase made Dominic close his eyes.
Then Sofia wrote:
If Leo ever reaches for you, please don’t let anyone tell you it means you owe him motherhood.
I stopped reading.
Dominic looked away.
My throat closed.
She had understood.
Leo might recognize my face.
My voice.
The pendant.
Things connected to her.
But recognition did not create obligation.
Sofia continued:
Be his aunt if you want. Be a stranger if you need. Just be Alina first.
That sentence released something inside me.
For months, everyone had been deciding which identity mattered.
Alessia.
Bellini.
Twin.
Heir.
Missing child.
Sofia gave me back Alina.
At the bottom of the cedar box was an envelope from a culinary institute in New York.
I frowned.
I had applied three years earlier.
Then abandoned the idea because Rosa became sick and tuition was impossible.
Sofia somehow learned about it.
Inside was a prepaid scholarship fund.
Not extravagant.
Enough for tuition.
Sofia wrote one final note.
Rosa says you wanted to become a chef.
Please do something with your life that has nothing to do with our family’s mistakes.
I sat on the floor and cried.
Leo crawled toward me.
He climbed clumsily into my lap.
Then did something he had never done before.
He touched my cheek.
Looked directly at me.
May you like
And said clearly:
“Lina.”
