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A soft knock pulls me out of my thoughts. I twist to see Maria and Auntie Carlotta coming in. Auntie Carlotta’s a general surgeon at this hospital. Maria did her radiology residency here. Auntie Carlotta walks over and rests her hand on my shoulder as she leans down to kiss my cheek. Maria stands at the foot of the bed. Our fucking family tree.
I’m distantly related however many generations back, but the Mancinellis have pretty much adopted me. The Mancinelli family legally adopted Auntie Carlotta’s husband, Domenico, as an infant sixty years ago. He’s Uncle Salvatore, Uncle Massimo, and Auntie Paola’s second cousin with no actual blood relation. Uncle Domenico and Auntie Carlotta have two sons: the exiled Emilio and Maria’s husband, Matteo. She’s Maria’s mother-in-law and something like her second cousin once removed-in-law.
Auntie Carlotta keeps her voice low as she watches the monitor then Sinead.
“How’s she doing?”
“Better now. They ruled out a heart attack and believe it was an extreme panic attack brought on by exposure to a childhood trauma. They said it was rare that the response should be so severe but not impossible. Maria, did you speak to Carmine?”
“Yeah. He’s in the hallway. He didn’t want to come in if it wasn’t appropriate.”
“Can you stay with her while I talk to him, please?”
“Of course.”
I do what I can to ease my arm away from her waist, but her eyes flash open. She grips my hand as tightly as she did my shirt earlier.
“Shhh,piccolina. I’m not going far. I need to talk to Carmine in the hallway. Auntie Carlotta and Maria are here. You probably don’t remember, but there was a man who came with Maria. This is his mom. She’s a doctor too.”
“Don’t go. Please, Gabe.”
“Shhh. Maria, can you push back the curtain?”
She hurries to do what I ask, and I point toward the door. I can see Carmine through the little window. I noticed it when we came up to her room, and I hate it. Glass can be broken, and guns pointed through the opening. Most hospital doors these days don’t have the window. Why the fuck does this one?
“That’s Carmine. He’s my best friend and Maria’s cousin. I’m just stepping outside to talk to him. You’ll be able to see me the entire time.”
“Can’t he come in here?”
“You can’t listen to what I have to say. Neither can Maria nor Auntie Carlotta.”
I give her a meaningful look. She nods as she looks at the two women, who both stand at the foot of the bed. I roll off and resist the urge to kiss any part of her. I walk out as I hear Maria greeting her. Carmine pushes off the wall he’s leaning on across from the door.
“I had no idea that wasn’t her. I checked shit before I sent it to you. But it all came back as her.”
“Hold on.” I hurry back into the room. “Sinead, can you unlock your phone and let me show Carmine the article I read?”
“Does he really have to? I don’t like people—”
I see her getting upset. I lean over, my hand taking hers as I whisper to her.
“My family will find about all of this. I’m sorry that it can’t stay between us, but it’s as much about protecting you as it is my case. Carmine is an expert at gathering intelligence. Lorenzo is an expert hacker. He has a degree in Computer Science. Between the two of them, they will figure this out, but they have to know that evidence exists to disprove the article that just came out.”
She looks at me for a long time before she nods. She unlocks the phone when I give it back to her. She taps the screen a couple times.
“This is the folder with everything. All the articles from the trial, all the evidence that’s been digitized, the case findings and rulings, and the exoneration letter.”
“Thank you,piccolina.”
I kiss her temple as I head back into the hallway. I scroll until I find the article she showed me. It detailed everything that went wrong from start to finish without going into the details she told me about that night. I hand it over to Carmine. He does the same thing I did: read it twice.
“Holy fuck.”
He whispers as he looks up at me and gives me the phone back as he looks past me and into the room. But I pulled the curtain behind me the second time I walked out, so he can’t see much.
“Right?”
“From the way Lorenzo and Marco described her, they never would have guessed she’d survived gen pop jail as a teenager. She seems so well-adjusted.”
