Chapter 5 - THE NECKLACE THAT CONNECTED THREE WOMEN
The necklace was made of silver.
A small oval pendant.
Two tiny roses engraved along the edge.
I'd seen it before.
Every Christmas.
Every birthday.
Every morning when my mother leaned over to kiss my forehead.
She used to wear it beneath her sweater.
When I was little, I asked what was inside.
She always smiled.
“Something I want you to understand when you're older.”
Then she would change the subject.
Five years ago, when the hospital called to say she'd died, the necklace was missing.
I had searched everywhere.
Now it had appeared inside Elena's abandoned car.
I sat in a private room at the police station, staring at its photograph.
Detective Laura Bennett studied me.
“You recognize it?”
I nodded.
“My mother's.”
Roman sat across from me.
He looked exhausted.
His sister was missing again.
His mother had been dead for fifteen years.
And now the woman he'd once loved was discovering that almost every part of her childhood had been a lie.
The detective continued.
“We recovered additional evidence from the car.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“A handwritten note.”
She placed a photograph on the table.
The note contained one sentence.
The answer is in the lullaby.
My heart stopped.
“What lullaby?”
Roman looked toward me.
I swallowed.
“My mother used to sing an old Italian song.”
He stared.
“What song?”
I hesitated.
Then softly hummed the melody.
One note.
Then another.
Roman's expression changed completely.
He whispered:
“Elena used to sing that.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“My mother taught it to her.”
The detective leaned forward.
“Do you remember the words?”
I nodded.
Barely.
I sang the first verse.
Then the second.
But when I reached the final line, Roman quietly finished it.
I stared at him.
“How do you know that?”
He looked devastated.
“My mother sang it to me when I was a child.”
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Detective Bennett asked if the melody contained any unusual details.
I thought about my mother.
How she'd sometimes paused before the final verse.
How she'd made me repeat seven particular words.
How she'd insisted I never forget them.
I closed my eyes.
Then whispered the words aloud.
Roman went still.
The detective wrote them down.
They were Italian words referring to the moon, the sea, a bell, a bridge, a rose, a door, and home.
Seven images.
Seven words.
Then I remembered something else.
My mother had once given me a small wooden music box.
I'd left it inside a suitcase beneath my bed.
The detective arranged for the box to be retrieved safely.
When investigators examined it, they discovered a hidden compartment.
Inside was a tiny memory card.
And a photograph.
Three women.
My mother.
Elena.
And another woman I didn't recognize.
On the back, in my mother's handwriting, were four words.
Our daughters deserve freedom.
I stared at the photograph.
Then Roman leaned closer.
His face turned white.
“That's impossible.”
I looked at him.
“Who is she?”
He swallowed.
May you like
Then whispered:
“That's my mother, Sophia Moretti. And this photograph was taken twelve years after her funeral.”
