Chapter 4 - A Long-Buried Secret
They did not go to a restaurant. They walked to a quiet, secluded corner of the piazza, near a small, ancient church.
The father bought warm tea and blankets from a nearby café.
The elderly woman, whose name was Clara, wrapped herself in a woolen shawl.
She kept her arms around the three little girls, who refused to leave her side.
“Thirty-one years ago, Arthur was a powerful man’s son,” Clara began, her voice steadying.
“I was just a girl from the countryside, working in his family’s garden.”
The mother, Beatrice, listened, her heart aching for the mother she had lost.
“When I became pregnant with Elena, his family was furious,” Clara continued.
“Arthur promised he would take care of us. He promised we would marry.”
She paused, a bitter tear rolling down her cheek.
“But the day Elena was born in the hospital, there were complications.”
“I passed out from the pain and the fever.”
“When I woke up, Arthur was standing over my bed, looking like a ghost.”
“He told me the baby’s heart had stopped. He said she was gone.”
Beatrice let out a soft, broken sob.
“He gave me a handful of money and told me to leave the city, to never return.”
“I was young, poor, and utterly destroyed. I believed him.”
“But I couldn't leave. I stayed in this city, living on the streets, waiting at this piazza.”
“Because this was where we had agreed to meet if we ever got lost.”
Beatrice reached out, grasping Clara’s withered hand.
“He took Elena,” Beatrice said, her voice trembling with anger.
“He raised her in luxury, but he told her that her mother had abandoned her in the hospital because she didn't want a child.”
“My mother grew up believing she was unwanted by the woman who gave her birth.”
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“That is why she brought me here every year. She was looking for you, but she didn't know your face.”
“She only had this half-heart pendant, which she said belonged to a woman who broke her heart.”
