Chapter 11 - What They Did With Grief
Dante had signed the new trust three weeks after they buried an empty casket.
Isabella remembered that day. Celia had come to the house with paperwork, saying the foundation needed to continue its work. Isabella had been upstairs, unable to bear the sound of another person speaking about the future.
“I thought it was a routine change,” Dante said.
“You signed away control after she told us our son was dead.”
“I didn’t know he was alive.”
“I believe you.”
He looked relieved for half a second.
“That doesn’t make what you did all right,” Isabella said.
The trust let Celia approve large payments without Isabella’s signature. Yet she had forged Isabella’s name on the later eight-million-dollar transfer anyway, hoping the false signature would draw blame to Isabella if anyone investigated.
Mara moved to have the trust suspended. Calder sought charges connected to the forged documents, the false hospital records, and the attack on Lena.
Isabella visited Dr. Ortiz in the hospital. Lena’s wrist was in a cast. Her voice shook when she apologized.
“You noticed the bracelet number three years ago?” Isabella asked.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I asked the records office. They said the band had been printed twice by mistake. The chart showed he died. I should have kept asking.”
Lena’s eyes filled with tears. “I am sorry.”
Isabella sat beside her.
“I need you to tell Calder everything you remember.”
“I have.”
“Then you’re helping him now.”
At home, Isabella called Annie. They talked for nearly an hour about Leo: how he hated peas, how he loved boats, how he slept with one hand curled under his cheek.
“I don’t want to take away the person he trusts,” Isabella said.
“I don’t want him to lose you now that we’ve found you,” Annie replied.
For the first time, Isabella believed they might find a way forward together.
That evening, Dante asked to meet her in Mara’s office.
He brought the second phone.
“I used it to talk to Natalia,” he said. “Celia also called me on it when she didn’t want her staff to hear. I gave Calder the records.”
Isabella didn’t touch the phone.
“Why tell me?”
“Because I kept secrets from you. Some were mine. Others belonged to Celia. I let both kinds hurt you.”
She had waited years to hear him say something like that. Now the words could not restore what had been lost.
“I’m filing for divorce,” she said.
Dante nodded once. He looked devastated, and she believed that, too.
When he stood to leave, Mara entered carrying a court notice.
Celia had withdrawn her petition against Isabella.
“That’s good,” Dante said.
“No,” Mara replied. “Her attorney filed a new request.”
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Celia was asking the court to recognize Annie’s adoption as invalid.
If she succeeded, Leo could be placed in state care while the adults fought over him.
