“What?”
“Luca called me two weeks ago.”
I stared at her.
“Why?”
“He asked whether you’d talked to me about selling the house.”
I stopped rocking.
“What?”
“I thought he meant generally. You’d mentioned downsizing after Lily was born.”
“I mentioned buying a smaller place in the city eventually. I never said I was definitely selling.”
“I know.”
“What did Luca ask?”
Evelyn looked uncomfortable.
“He wanted to know whether you’d told me what number you’d accept.”
Every instinct sharpened.
“What did you say?”
“That I didn’t know.”
“Did he explain why he wanted to know?”
“He said he was thinking about your financial future as a family.”
I gave a short, humorless laugh.
“That sounds like him.”
“There was something else.”
Of course there was.
“He said if you ever sold, he wanted enough notice to ‘protect his position.’”
“What position?”
“I asked.”
“And?”
“He changed the subject.”
I looked down at Lily.
Pieces were beginning to appear.
Not a complete picture.
But pieces.
The locks.
The unused email account.
Luca asking about the house’s sale price.
His concern about his “position.”
“What did you think he meant?”
“I thought maybe the prenup bothered him more than he admitted.”
“It always bothered Wendy.”
“That too.”
Lily shifted against my chest.
Evelyn lowered her voice.
“Why did you never add him to the deed?”
The answer came immediately.
“Because Dad told me not to.”
Evelyn blinked.
“Dad?”
“Before he died.”
“You never told me that.”
“It wasn’t dramatic. Luca and I had been dating maybe six months. Dad asked whether Luca had started talking about the house like it belonged to him.”
Evelyn’s face changed.
“He noticed?”
“Dad noticed everything.”
“What did you say?”
“I defended Luca.”
Naturally.
I could remember the conversation with painful clarity now.
Dad sitting on the terrace, wrapped in a gray cardigan despite the summer warmth.
He had already lost weight from treatment.
Luca had gone inside to take a call.
Dad watched him through the windows before looking at me.
You love generously, Jessica.
I had rolled my eyes.
That sounds like the beginning of a lecture.
