Chapter 4 - The Second Floor South
The transition from the third-floor servant’s garret to the second-floor south suite felt like moving from a tomb into a gallery. The rooms were high-ceilinged, plastered in pale sea-foam green with tall, arched windows that looked out over the crashing surf of Narragansett Bay rather than the dense, choking pines of the interior estate.
By Tuesday afternoon, Lily was there.
She sat propped up in a velvet-upholstered armchair by the bay window, a woolen blanket thrown over her thin legs, clutching a stuffed rabbit with one missing ear. Her breathing was still shallow, the faint whistling sound in her chest audible if the room went completely quiet, but the blue tint around her lips was gone, replaced by the pale, translucent pink of a child who had spent too many weeks inside sterile hospital walls.
"Mommy," Lily whispered, her fingers tracing the frayed ear of the rabbit. "Is this a hotel?"
"Something like that, sweetheart," Corrie said, smoothing down the corner of the heavy linen quilt on the mahogany bed behind her. "Only we don't have to check out."
The door swung open without a knock—not because of discouragement, but because the hinges were maintained by men who checked everything twice a day. Rosa walked in carrying a silver tray laden with a bowl of chicken broth, buttered toast, and a small porcelain dish of sliced pears.
"For the young lady," Rosa announced, setting the tray across the arms of Lily’s chair with practiced care. Her stern face melted into an uncharacteristic, radiant grin as she pinched Lily’s cheek gently. "You look too skinny, mi amor. We have to put some meat on those bones before the winter storm hits."
Lily looked down at the broth, her eyes wide. "Is there chicken in it?"
"Whole chickens, little one. The kind that lived a very happy life before they came to my kitchen," Rosa lied smoothly, winking at Corrie.
As Rosa bustled back toward the door, another figure appeared in the threshold.
Domenico Moretti stood there in his shirtsleeves, his cuffs rolled up to his forearms, revealing lean, corded muscles and a pale scar running diagonally across his left wrist. He didn't enter the room immediately; he leaned against the doorframe, watching Lily spoon up a tentative bite of the broth.
Lily stopped chewing and looked up. Children possessed an instinctive radar for danger and safety, a compass that adults often dulled with polite rationalization. She didn't shrink away from the tall, dark-suited man in the doorway. Instead, she tilted her head.
"Are you the boss?" Lily asked, her voice clear and carrying across the quiet room.
Moretti’s eyebrows rose slightly. A faint, ghost of a smile touched the corner of his mouth.
"I am," Moretti said, stepping fully into the room.
"My mom says you have nice books in your office," Lily continued, entirely unfazed. "Can I borrow one with pictures?"
Corrie’s heart leaped into her throat. "Lily, Mr. Moretti is very busy—"
"Quiet, Corrie," Moretti said softly, his eyes never leaving the child. He walked over to the bookshelf built into the wall beneath the window—a case filled with leather-bound volumes of maritime history and nineteenth-century poetry—and scanned the spines. He pulled out a slender, green-bound book with gilt lettering: Audubon’s Birds of America, an oversized edition with hand-colored plates of herons and hawks.
He knelt down beside Lily’s chair—a gesture so incongruous with his reputation that Corrie felt her breath catch—and laid the heavy volume across her lap.
"The pictures of the owls are on page forty-two," Moretti told her, his voice losing its customary metallic edge, dropping into a register that was almost gentle. "Don't bend the pages. The paper is old."
Lily opened the cover, her eyes widening as the vibrant plumage of a great horned owl met her gaze. "It's huge," she whispered.
"Everything in the past was larger," Moretti said, rising to his feet. He looked across the room at Corrie, his dark gaze locking onto hers with a quiet intensity. "Your surgical authorization has cleared the hospital board. Dr. Vance will perform the procedure on Thursday morning. My car will take you both at six."
May you like
Corrie felt the last knot in her chest finally give way, a hot, stinging pressure behind her eyes that she fought hard to blink back. "Thank you," she managed to say. "I don't know how to—"
"You don't need to," Moretti interrupted quietly. He turned toward the door, pausing with his hand on the brass knob. "Just keep the books clean, Miss Hayes. And keep your daughter by the window. The light is better on this side of the house."
