The Table Where Nobody Spoke
Chapter 02 - The Table Where Nobody Spoke
Dante crouched beside his mother's chair. He'd learned to keep his expression unreadable in negotiations; he'd never imagined needing that skill across a dinner table from the woman who raised him.
“Look at me, Ma. I didn't sign anything to send you away.”
Rose searched his face. “Then why did she show me the letter?”
Celeste exhaled dramatically. “It was a preliminary care assessment. You're making a scene out of something meant to help her.”
“Whose assessment?” Dante asked.
“Our physician's.”
“Name.”
She hesitated. “Dr. Harlan.”
Dante knew the doctor. He'd been introduced to the family six months earlier on Celeste's recommendation, despite Rose's longtime physician still being available. Dante hadn't questioned it. That casual decision now seemed enormous.
Rose held Evelyn's hand harder. “She was kind. Let her stay.”
Dante turned to the waitress. “What's your name?”
“Evelyn Hart, sir.”
“Did my mother say anything else?”
Evelyn glanced at Celeste. “She said someone took her house keys. And her phone.”
Celeste's voice sharpened. “This is outrageous. A server shouldn't be meddling in private medical issues.”
“Neither should a dinner table,” Evelyn answered before she could stop herself.
The words stunned her. Dante looked at her for a beat, then nodded.
“You're right.” He turned to the restaurant director. “Please arrange a quiet room. And make sure Ms. Hart isn't punished for helping my mother.”
The director hurried away.
Dante called his security chief, Anthony Russo, and asked him to arrange transport for Rose and a medical assessment with an independent clinician. He refused to let her leave with Celeste.
Celeste's face grew tight. “So now you trust a waitress over me?”
“I trust what I heard. I haven't decided what happened.”
Her expression hardened at the distinction.
As they prepared to move Rose, a folded picture slipped from her handbag. Evelyn bent to retrieve it. She froze.
The photograph showed two women in a summer garden. One held an infant wrapped in yellow. The woman with the baby had Evelyn's narrow chin, dark eyes, and distinctive crescent-shaped birthmark beside her jaw.
“Where did you get this?” Evelyn whispered.
Rose touched the photograph tenderly. “My sister Margaret. That's her baby.”
Evelyn stared at the child. Her own mother had died when she was fifteen; she'd been raised hearing that her birth was a miracle after years of infertility. Yet the woman in the photograph looked eerily familiar.
Celeste reached for the picture. “Give me that.”
May you like
Dante blocked her hand. “Nobody touches it until Ma tells me where it came from.”
The old woman looked at her son and asked, “Would you find Margaret for me? Celeste told me she never existed.”
