The Appointment Nobody Made
Chapter 03 - The Appointment Nobody Made
At six the next morning, Luca stood alone in the kitchen drinking coffee that had gone cold. The cooks were not due until seven. Rosa had slept in the room beside Teresa, and Hannah had stayed on the couch in case the old woman needed help walking to the bathroom.
He had spent the night calling people who owed him favors. The administrator of the New Jersey residence confirmed a private suite was reserved under Teresa Moretti's name. The consent papers identified Vanessa Bellini as her medical representative. They included a physician's recommendation for supervised care because of suspected memory loss.
Luca knew the physician, Dr. Paul Carden, from charity dinners. He also knew his mother's memory for dates was better than his own.
When Carden arrived at the mansion at eight, he wore a camel coat and the disconcerted expression of a man who believed a social visit had been arranged. Luca received him in the small sitting room rather than his office. On the coffee table lay the transfer packet.
"Did you diagnose my mother with dementia?" Luca asked.
Carden cleared his throat. "I didn't use that word."
"What words did you use?"
"I said she might benefit from a comprehensive geriatric assessment. Vanessa told me there had been falls and confusion. She sent me a summary from another clinician."
"Did you examine Teresa?"
"Not personally."
Luca slid the packet across the table. Carden studied his printed signature and went pale.
"That's not my medical recommendation," he said.
He took out his glasses and read the page again. The signature looked like his, but the paragraph beneath it had been rewritten. His original note had recommended a bathroom closer to Teresa's bedroom and better lighting in the halls.
"I can retrieve the original from my office," he said.
"Do it. Then send it to a lawyer. Not mine. Yours."
When the doctor left, Luca found Hannah on the terrace washing a pale blue teacup by hand. Teresa had finally gone to sleep. It was a cool morning, and the garden smelled of rain and damp gravel.
"You stayed awake all night," he said.
"So did you."
"It's easier when you're angry."
"Until morning."
She looked older than twenty-five with her hair coming loose from its bun. He noticed a small burn on her wrist, the sort made by a kettle or an oven rack, and wondered how many ordinary things he hadn't seen in this house.
"Tell me about your grandmother," he said.
She had more than messages to show him. On the back of a grocery receipt, Hannah had written the dates Teresa was dizzy, the afternoons when meals arrived late, and the times Vanessa refused to let her speak to a doctor alone. Hannah had kept it because when her grandmother's health declined, she learned that ordinary details became important after people started arguing about what happened.
She was ashamed, however, to admit how often she had softened the truth when talking to Teresa. Once she had said Vanessa was merely distracted by the engagement. Another time she had assured the old woman Luca would surely come home soon. Hannah had wanted to be comforting. Listening to Luca now, she wondered whether comfort could become another kind of silence if it asked the injured person to be patient one more day.
Hannah wiped her hands on a dish towel. "Her name was Ada Collins. She sewed wedding dresses in a factory for thirty-seven years. When the factory closed, she cleaned hotel rooms. The apartment was small, but the landlord let her keep window boxes. She grew basil, even in December."
"And Hawthorne bought the building?"
"They bought a majority interest in the company that owned it. There was a notice in the hallway. Anyone who agreed to relocate early got two thousand dollars. Everyone else was told the water would be shut off for repairs."
"Was it shut off?"
"For a month. Ada was seventy-nine. She signed the papers because the alternative was bathing from a bucket. By the time a tenants' lawyer found out, the apartments had been gutted."
Luca had learned a lifetime of clever ways to take property from men who could afford lawyers. Listening to Hannah describe a woman carrying hot water upstairs made the business sound less clever.
"Did you sue?" he asked.
"We tried. The lawyer said we needed documents I didn't have. Ada died while we were waiting. I took a job caring for another older woman. That's how I learned what a dangerous phrase 'temporary relocation' can be."
"Why come here?"
"The listing said companion and household assistant for an elderly woman. Teresa was lonely. She wanted someone who'd sit with her while she embroidered. I thought that sounded like something I could do well."
It was an answer he wanted to believe. His father's friends had taught him the cost of wanting too badly.
At noon, Gabriel Rossi arrived. Luca's chief of staff was fifty-four, broad-shouldered, meticulous, and loyal in the weary way of a man who had seen too many funerals. He carried the three messages Hannah had left for Luca's office. Each had a neat red mark: FORWARDED TO V. BELLINI.
"I followed the household protocol," Gabriel said.
"Who wrote the protocol?"
"You authorized it in February."
Luca remembered the meeting. Vanessa had said he needed fewer interruptions, and he had agreed because he trusted her. He had delegated the house, his mother's welfare, and every letter bearing the old Moretti crest. He had done it willingly.
"Change it," Luca said. "Nobody screens a call from my mother again. Or from anyone about her care."
Gabriel nodded, but his eyes remained on Hannah's messages. "There's something else. The development company applied for a construction permit at the cottages. The request describes the buildings as vacant."
"They aren't vacant."
"I know. There's a map with the tenant doors marked for removal. Work was approved last week."
"Who approved it?"
Gabriel hesitated. "The permit application has your electronic signature."
Luca took the tablet and enlarged the document. His name appeared below a certification that the site was unoccupied. He checked the date: February twenty-first, three days after his father's memorial service, the night he had worked until sunrise.
May you like
For the first time, he remembered clicking through a stack of documents Vanessa and Gabriel had set beside his laptop. He had signed without reading.
He could accuse Vanessa of lying, but the final line of the certification belonged to him. His name was on the document that could put four elderly women on the street.
