Chapter 2 - THE INSCRIPTION IN THE POETRY BOOK
Carmine’s question hung in the sudden, suffocating silence of the formal dining room.
“Where is the book you gave me that day?”
Vanessa’s perfectly glossed lips parted, but for the first time all evening, no sound came out. The soft clinking of crystal champagne flutes and the murmured conversations of the thirty engagement guests had completely ceased. Everyone was staring at the head of the long, candlelit table.
I stood by the piano, my hands still hovering inches above the ivory keys, my heart pounding so hard against my ribs I thought the entire room could hear it. I gripped the edges of my white linen apron. I was gambling my job, my rent money, and my quiet life on this single moment. But looking at the silver music box sitting on the table—a cheap, twisted mockery of Elena’s beautiful memory—I knew I couldn’t stay silent.
“Carmine, darling, what a strange question to ask right now,” Vanessa finally said. Her voice was smooth, coated in that thick, practiced sweetness she used whenever she spoke to him. She reached out, her manicured fingers brushing the sleeve of his tailored tuxedo. “The book is upstairs. In your nightstand, where you always keep it.”
“I want to see it,” Carmine said. He didn’t raise his voice, but the absolute stillness in his tone made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. He didn't pull away from her touch, but he didn't lean into it, either.
“Now?” Vanessa let out a high, breathy laugh that sounded entirely hollow. She looked around at the wealthy guests—investors, board members, old money families who had known Elena. “Carmine, our guests are waiting for the dessert course. We’re celebrating. We can look at dusty old books later.”
“Nell,” Carmine said, his dark eyes shifting to me, ignoring Vanessa entirely. “Go up to the master bedroom. Bring me the leather-bound copy of W.B. Yeats. The one from the nightstand.”
“No!” Vanessa’s hand snapped out, gripping Carmine’s forearm tight enough that her knuckles turned stark white. Her mask of elegant composure slipped, revealing something frantic and sharp beneath. “She doesn't need to go digging through our private bedroom! I’ll get it.”
“Stay exactly where you are,” Carmine told her.
I didn't wait for another order. I turned and walked quickly out of the dining room, my black sensible shoes completely silent on the imported marble floors of the hallway. As I climbed the sweeping grand staircase, my mind raced.
Six months ago, Carmine had come home with a story that seemed like a modern-day fairy tale. He had ducked into a small, independent bookstore in the city to escape a sudden downpour. There was only one empty leather reading chair left in the back corner. As he reached for it, a beautiful woman had reached for the exact same chair. They laughed. She noticed he was looking at the poetry section. She handed him a vintage copy of Yeats, telling him it was her favorite.
He had fallen in love with her that very afternoon. He told everyone it felt like destiny. He said it felt like she had been hand-picked by the universe to heal his broken heart.
I reached the master suite and pushed open the heavy oak doors. The room was immaculate, smelling faintly of Vanessa’s expensive tuberose perfume. I walked straight to Carmine’s side of the massive king bed and opened the top drawer of the mahogany nightstand.
There it was. A worn, green leather volume of W.B. Yeats poetry.
I picked it up. My hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped it. I opened the front cover.
On the inside flap, written in elegant, looping cursive, was an inscription: “For the man who understands that true love is just a quiet room and a shared silence. Yours always.”
I stared at the ink. I felt a cold chill wash over my entire body, starting from my scalp and sinking all the way down to my toes.
It was Elena’s handwriting.
Not an approximation. Not a forgery that looked similar. It was the exact, distinct slant of the lowercase ‘t’, the unique swoop of the capital ‘Y’. I had spent four years cleaning this house. I had dusted Elena’s desk, organized her charity files, and read the grocery lists she used to leave on the kitchen island. I knew her handwriting as well as I knew my own mother’s.
But Elena had been dead for three years before this book was supposedly handed to Carmine by a stranger in a bookstore.
I closed the book and ran back downstairs. When I re-entered the dining room, the tension was so thick it was hard to breathe. Carmine was standing. Vanessa was sitting rigidly in her chair, her jaw clamped shut.
I walked over and handed the book to Carmine.
He opened the front cover. He stared at the inscription. I watched his chest rise and fall in a slow, jagged breath.
“You told me you wrote this the day we met,” Carmine whispered, tracing the ink with his thumb. “You said you wrote it at the coffee shop across the street, right before you walked into the bookstore.”
“I did,” Vanessa said fiercely. “I have beautiful handwriting, Carmine. You’ve seen my grocery lists. You’ve seen my notes.”
“You do have beautiful handwriting,” I interrupted, stepping forward. I didn't care about my place as a maid anymore. “But you didn't write this. Because this is the exact inscription Elena wrote inside the copy of Jane Eyre she gave Carmine for his fortieth birthday.”
The entire room gasped.
Carmine’s head snapped up to look at me. “How do you know that, Nell?”
“Because six weeks before you met Vanessa, I caught her in Elena’s old study,” I said, looking dead into Vanessa’s furious eyes. “She told me she was looking for a pen for her foundation paperwork. But she was holding Elena’s old private journals. She wasn't just learning Elena’s piano songs, Mr. Orsini. She was tracing her handwriting. She was memorizing exactly what your wife used to say to you, so she could repeat it back.”
“You lying, pathetic little girl!” Vanessa stood up, her chair screeching violently against the hardwood floor. She pointed a shaking finger at me. “You’re obsessed with my fiancé! You’ve been in love with him for years, scrubbing his floors and hoping he’d notice you! Don't listen to her, Carmine! She’s crazy!”
Carmine didn't look at her. He was still staring down at the open book in his hands. He ran his thumb over the spine, pressing into the tight binding.
As he pressed down, the thick, vintage paper of the inner binding separated slightly from the leather cover.
A small, glossy square of paper slipped out from the hidden gap behind the spine. It fluttered through the air and landed face-up on the polished mahogany table, right next to the silver music box.
It was a photograph.
May you like
Carmine reached out and picked it up. All the color instantly drained from his face, leaving him looking like a ghost.
“Vanessa,” Carmine whispered, his voice cracking down the middle. “You told me you had never met my wife.”
