Chapter 3 - THE CHILDREN WITHOUT NAMES
The next morning, I discovered that Grandma Julia had been keeping secrets inside her recipe book.
It was the last thing she'd mailed me before she died.
A battered Italian cookbook with loose pages, handwritten notes, and tiny flour stains along the edges.
I'd placed it in my suitcase without opening it.
Now I sat beside the guest-room window, turning pages with trembling fingers.
On page forty-seven, beneath a recipe for lemon ricotta cookies, Grandma had written:
Three cups flour.
Two eggs.
Seventeen names.
I stared.
Seventeen names?
The number was underlined twice.
I turned the page.
A thin photograph slipped into my lap.
Seventeen children stood outside a brick building.
Some were smiling.
Others looked frightened.
A nurse stood behind them.
Her face was partially hidden.
But I recognized her blue scarf.
My mother.
On the photograph's reverse was an address.
St. Catherine's Children's Residence.
Boston, Massachusetts.
And a date from seventeen years earlier.
I rushed to Vincent's study.
He was speaking with his attorney, Rebecca Shaw.
The moment he saw the photograph, he ended the call.
“Where did you get that?”
“Grandma's cookbook.”
Rebecca examined the picture.
Her expression grew serious.
“St. Catherine's was closed following a financial investigation.”
I looked at her.
“What investigation?”
“Improper guardianship records. Missing charitable funds. Several disputed adoptions.”
My stomach tightened.
“Were the children found?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Some. The remaining cases were never fully resolved.”
I stared at the photograph.
My mother had known these children.
Perhaps she'd been trying to protect them.
“Did Lorenzo Morelli own the building?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“Not directly. A charitable trust funded its operations.”
“Whose trust?”
She looked toward Vincent.
“The Russo Foundation.”
The room fell silent.
Vincent slowly sat down.
For the first time, he seemed genuinely shaken.
“My father told me the foundation supported children with medical needs.”
Rebecca nodded.
“That may have been its stated purpose.”
I felt anger rising.
“So families lost their children while wealthy men moved money around?”
“We need to establish precisely what happened,” Rebecca answered.
I took a breath.
“Then let's find the records.”
Rebecca agreed to review the old case through appropriate legal channels.
She also arranged for an independent investigator to examine the photograph.
Meanwhile, I called the hospital where Grandma had spent her final days.
The nurse remembered her.
“She kept asking whether you'd received the cookbook,” the woman said.
My throat tightened.
“Did she say why?”
A pause.
“She said the truth was sewn into the binding.”
I stopped breathing.
That evening, I carefully examined the book.
Inside its damaged spine was a narrow compartment.
I removed a folded document.
It contained a list of seventeen children.
Birth dates.
Original names.
And names assigned after their placements.
I read the first six entries before reaching number seven.
My fingers went numb.
Child Seven: Sarah Isabella Bellini.
Beside my name was another.
New identity: Sarah Reed.
I stared at the page.
My name change hadn't happened six years ago.
May you like
Someone had planned it seventeen years earlier.
And according to the document, the person who authorized it was my own mother.
