The Wedding Gift
Chapter 14 - The Wedding Gift
The gift was a white box tied with red ribbon.
No one touched it until the bomb squad arrived.
Sadi stood in the foyer wearing Dominic’s coat again, which had become an unfortunate habit and a worse comfort. Dominic stood beside her, expression carved from stone. Rosa sat on the staircase, muttering prayers and insults in equal measure.
The box contained no bomb.
That almost made it worse.
Inside was a porcelain teacup, cracked cleanly down the middle and glued back together with gold.
Beside it lay a card.
For the waitress who became valuable too late.
Under the card was a photograph.
Sadi’s mother.
Alive.
Older than in any picture Sadi owned, thinner, with gray at her temples. She stood near a window, holding that same cracked teacup.
On the back, in Lucia Moretti’s handwriting, was an address in Montreal.
Sadi could not speak.
Rosa rose from the staircase with both hands trembling.
Dominic took the photograph gently and examined it.
“This could be old.”
“It isn’t,” Gabriel said, holding up his phone. “The newspaper in the background is dated six months ago.”
Sadi sat down because her knees had stopped participating in the conversation.
“My mother died.”
No one corrected her.
No one dared.
All her life, Elaine Hayes had been a grave she visited with supermarket flowers. A story ending in pneumonia, poverty, and an eight-year-old girl learning that grief could arrive with unpaid bills.
Now there was a photograph.
A woman alive in another country.
A woman who had let her daughter mourn her.
Dominic crouched in front of Sadi.
“Look at me.”
She did.
“I will find out if this is real.”
Sadi laughed once, broken. “You can’t just order reality to explain itself.”
“I can make it uncomfortable.”
Despite everything, a tear slipped down her cheek and she hated it.
Rosa whispered, “Elaine.”
Sadi looked at her sharply. “Did you know?”
“No.”
But Rosa’s face had changed.
Not guilt.
Recognition.
“What?” Sadi demanded.
Rosa touched the photograph with one finger. “The cup. Elaine’s grandmother owned a cup broken like this. She used to say women in her family repaired what the world cracked because replacement was for people with money.”
Sadi stared at the gold seam.
Kintsugi. She had seen photos of it once. Broken pottery repaired with gold, the damage made visible instead of hidden.
Lucia had chosen the message carefully.
By noon, Gabriel confirmed the address existed. By two, Laura Beck warned them it could be a trap. By three, Dominic had a plane ready.
“You are not going,” he said.
Sadi looked at him.
He closed his eyes briefly. “I heard it as soon as I said it.”
“Good.”
“You are injured.”
“You are bossy.”
“Both statements can be true.”
Rosa insisted on coming until her doctor threatened to call every priest in Illinois. She settled for sending a rosary and a warning.
“If Elaine is alive,” she told Sadi, “ask her why before you decide whether to forgive her.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Of course you don’t. Forgiveness announced in advance is usually vanity.”
Dominic and Sadi flew to Montreal under false names with Gabriel and two men she trusted because they had terrible poker faces. The address led to a narrow house above a shuttered tailor shop.
Snow fell lightly, though Chicago still held rain.
Dominic knocked.
No answer.
He knocked again.
From inside came the sound of something breaking.
Dominic kicked the door open.
The room beyond smelled of dust, tea, and fear.
A woman stood near the window, one hand pressed to her mouth.
Her hair was gray at the temples.
Her eyes were Sadi’s.
For a moment, mother and daughter looked at each other across twenty-five years of lies.
Then Elaine Hayes whispered, “You weren’t supposed to marry him.”
Behind her, a man stepped from the shadows and placed a gun against her side.
May you like
Lucia Moretti smiled at Sadi.
“But I hoped you would.”
