Four Beds in a Small Apartment
Chapter 04 - Four Beds in a Small Apartment
Elena did not let me take them to my house.
She did not let me take them to a hotel I owned.
She did not let my men sweep the building first, check the exits, or place guards in the hallway where her neighbors might see.
She said, very calmly, that if I tried to turn her life into a fortress before I learned how her children took their cereal, she would disappear again and this time I would not find her.
I believed her.
So I followed in my own car two blocks behind the taxi she insisted on taking.
Arthur sat in the passenger seat beside me, quiet for once.
When we pulled onto a narrow street in Somerville, he looked at the modest brick building with the flickering entrance light and said, “Four boys live here?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“They have stairs?”
“Three flights.”
Arthur said nothing else.
That was why I had kept him near me for fifteen years. He knew when silence respected more than sympathy did.
Elena’s apartment sat above a tailor shop and smelled faintly of steam, garlic, and children’s crayons. There were four small coats on hooks beside the door, four pairs of sneakers lined beneath them, four identical school drawings taped to the wall with careful labels because only a mother could tell which storm cloud belonged to which son.
Nicholas took off his shoes without being asked.
Theo forgot.
Marco reminded him.
Ben carried his backpack with both straps clutched in one hand, watching me from behind Elena’s leg.
The living room was smaller than my closet.
That thought shamed me immediately.
Not because poverty is noble.
It is not.
It is exhausting and expensive and humiliating in ways wealthy people romanticize because they have never had to choose which bill can become late without consequences.
The boys’ beds were in one room.
Two bunk beds.
Four quilts.
A shelf of library books.
Plastic dinosaurs.
A baseball glove with split leather.
On one nightstand sat a framed photograph of Elena holding four newborns, her face thin with exhaustion and radiant with terror.
I stopped in the doorway.
She noticed.
“That was the second week.”
“Where was this?”
“Burlington.”
“Were they early?”
“Eight weeks.”
My hand curled around the edge of the doorframe.
“Elena.”
“No.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I know that now.”
But knowing did not heal six years.
It only made the wound change shape.
The boys gathered in the kitchen because hunger is stronger than tension at six years old. Elena made toast. Four plates. Butter cut thin. Strawberry jam divided so carefully it angered me in a way I had no right to show.
I wanted to order groceries.
Pay the rent.
Buy the building.
Move them somewhere warm, large, safe.
I also understood, for once, that wanting to fix everything with money was part of the reason Elena was looking at me as though every generous impulse might be another chain.
So I sat at the small table and waited to be invited into anything.
Ben climbed onto the chair across from me.
“Are you rich?”
“Yes.”
“How rich?”
“Too rich for that question to be polite,” Elena said from the sink.
Ben considered that.
“Are you bad?”
Arthur coughed into his fist.
I met my son’s eyes.
“I have done bad things.”
“Like steal?”
“Yes.”
Elena turned slowly.
I did not look away from Ben.
“Lie?”
“Yes.”
“Push people?”
“No,” I said. “Not children. Not women. Not people who cannot push back.”
Nicholas frowned.
“That’s a lot of rules for a bad guy.”
“It should be.”
Theo leaned forward.
“Do you have a castle?”
“No.”
“Do you have a secret door?”
“Yes.”
All four boys gasped.
Elena closed her eyes.
“Dominic.”
“What? It was a factual answer.”
Nicholas looked pleased, as if factual answers belonged to him.
After toast, Elena sent them to wash up.
Arthur stayed near the door. He had already checked the street three times without seeming to move.
When we were alone in the kitchen, Elena opened a drawer and removed a brown envelope.
“I kept everything.”
She placed it on the table between us.
Inside were copies of letters.
Six.
All addressed to me.
None returned.
There were also photographs of her pregnant. Medical bills. A birth certificate request. A typed agreement offering her money to relocate permanently and “relinquish any present or future claim connected to Dominic A. Moretti.”
At the bottom was a signature.
Mine.
Seeing my name there felt like watching a stranger wear my skin.
“That is not my signature.”
“I know that now.”
“But then?”
“Then I was twenty-six, pregnant with four babies, and your uncle told me if I forced my way into your life, he would make sure my sons grew up being called mistakes.”
My throat closed.
“He said sons?”
“Yes.”
“He knew?”
Her eyes shone, but she did not cry.
“Everyone seemed to know except you.”
The bedroom door opened.
Marco appeared, holding a small wooden box.
“Mom, Ben says we can’t show him the question box because he might be temporary.”
Elena’s face did something fragile.
“What question box?”
Marco put it on the table.
Inside were folded slips of paper.
Questions the boys had asked about the father they did not know.
Where does he live?
Does he have the same eyes?
Was he scared when we were babies?
Did he leave because four is too many?
I read that one twice.
The room blurred.
Elena gently took the paper from my hand.
“Dominic.”
I stood because sitting still had become impossible.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
A distorted voice said, “You were warned once. Leave the Rossi boys alone.”
The line went dead.
From the bedroom, Ben called, “Mom? Somebody’s outside.”
Arthur was already moving.
Elena reached the window first.
A black SUV idled across the street.
May you like
On its windshield, tucked beneath the wiper, was a white envelope.
My name was written across it in Carlo’s hand.
