Isabella Did Not Want Her Mother’s Dress, But She Wanted the Sleeves
Chapter 09 - Isabella Did Not Want Her Mother’s Dress, But She Wanted the Sleeves
Isabella said yes to the sleeves.
Not Teresa’s original sleeves.
Not the damaged gown.
New ones.
Her own dress.
Her own fabric.
Her mother’s unfinished pattern.
Marianne studied the drawing for a long time.
“My hands can’t do all of this anymore.”
Emma said:
“I can.”
Her mother raised an eyebrow.
“Badly.”
“Less badly now.”
True.
The conservator, Dr. Elaine Porter, offered to supervise.
No sentimental miracle where arthritis disappears for a wedding.
Marianne chose the sections she could manage.
Emma stitched the rest.
Isabella approved every change.
Important.
The new sleeves carried tiny blue flowers.
Not harvested from Teresa’s dress.
Recreated from the pattern.
The original gown would be conserved intact, scars included.
Vanessa’s cut sections reattached visibly rather than invisibly.
Elaine recommended it.
“Restoration doesn’t always mean pretending damage never happened.”
Emma wrote that down.
It sounded useful beyond fabric.
Isabella married in June.
Small church.
Large dinner.
Luca walked her halfway down the aisle.
Then stopped.
Why halfway?
Because Isabella wanted to walk the second half alone.
Their father Enzo was dead.
Their mother too.
She did not want Luca replacing either parent.
He understood.
At the reception, Marianne cried over the sleeves.
Emma cried because Marianne cried.
Luca watched from across the room.
No approach.
Not yet.
He had learned something too.
After dinner, Isabella found Emma near the terrace.
“You know my brother is in love with you.”
Emma nearly dropped her glass.
“No.”
Isabella laughed.
“He’s terrible at it.”
“He’s not.”
“At love?”
“At being in love with me.”
“Same problem.”
Emma shook her head.
Luca Moretti had been kind since she left the mansion.
Respectful.
He sent no expensive gifts.
No job offers.
No car.
Once he mailed a book on textile conservation because Emma mentioned she could not afford the hardcover.
She returned it.
He later sent the library call number.
Better.
They had coffee twice.
Both times Emma paid for herself.
No declaration.
Good.
She liked him.
That was different.
Liking a man with Luca’s history required more caution than Isabella’s jokes allowed.
His criminal reputation was not invented.
The Moretti family still had businesses with ugly origins.
Emma knew enough about Luca’s own past to refuse the comforting version in which every crime belonged to his father.
He had run illegal sports books in his twenties.
Used intimidation to collect debts.
Paid officials.
Threatened competitors.
He called those things “before I moved legitimate.”
As if a calendar cleans money.
Emma did not accept that.
When Luca finally asked her to dinner as a date, she said:
“Only if you answer three questions first.”
He looked wary.
“Three?”
“What illegal businesses do you still own?”
His face changed.
Good.
“What crimes would you admit if no lawyer was here?”
Worse.
“And are you asking me because I make you feel forgiven?”
Luca sat very still.
Then answered.
Not immediately.
He still held interests in two clubs that paid cash off books through intermediaries.
He had knowledge of illegal gambling routed through a cousin’s company.
He had used threats to recover loans as recently as five years earlier.
No physical violence ordered by him in recent years.
“Recent?”
Emma caught it.
Luca looked away.
At twenty-six, he had ordered two men to beat a borrower who stole from the family.
There.
Not innocent.
Not glamorous.
“What happened to him?”
“Broken jaw.”
“Did you pay his hospital bill afterward?”
“No.”
Good.
No convenient redemption retroactively.
“Did you apologize?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because until now I told myself he deserved consequences.”
Emma stared.
“And now?”
“Now I think I liked having the right to decide what consequences looked like.”
That answer frightened her.
Also sounded true.
She asked:
“What are you doing about the illegal businesses?”
“Selling the clubs.”
“To who?”
“Not another family member.”
Good.
“And the gambling?”
“Closing my interest.”
“Because of me?”
“No.”
A pause.
“Because the last year made it difficult to keep calling coercion tradition.”
Better.
Still words.
Emma said:
“Ask me again in six months.”
Luca almost smiled.
“That bad?”
“That serious.”
He nodded.
No pressure.
Six months passed.
He sold the clubs under legal review.
Paid back taxes and penalties through counsel.
Exited the gambling interest.
Cooperated with a state investigation into one bribery scheme involving a former alderman.
He was not charged in that matter due to limitations and evidence issues?
He lost money.
Some allies.
His uncle called him weak.
Good.
Emma watched from a distance.
No reward guaranteed.
Then one evening Luca visited the conservation studio.
By appointment.
Teresa’s gown stood on a padded form.
Restored.
Not perfect.
Blue thread marked every repair.
Elaine had used reversible stitching so future conservators could identify what was original.
Luca touched nothing.
He looked.
“Can I ask you now?”
Emma smiled despite herself.
“One date.”
He nodded.
“One.”
Then Elaine entered carrying a newly cataloged document found inside the cedar chest lining during conservation review.
Not another secret paternity paper.
A receipt.
Dated the year Teresa created the sewing-workers trust.
Payment from Teresa Moretti to Michael Sullivan.
$80,000.
Memo:
BUYOUT — BLUE THREAD / FULL AND FINAL.
Emma stared.
Her father.
A buyout.
May you like
If Michael had accepted eighty thousand dollars for Blue Thread rights, Marianne’s claim to royalties might already have been settled.
And neither Marianne nor Emma had ever heard of it.
