Chapter 3 - The First Lesson
The east wing of the Santangelo mansion felt like a separate house entirely—quieter, colder, and smelling faintly of old parchment and sea salt that blew in from the bay whenever the wind shifted from the east.
Delia’s bedroom was small, austere, and immaculately clean. A narrow iron cot with a woolen quilt, a heavy oak wardrobe, a washstand with a blue-and-white ceramic pitcher, and a small writing desk facing a tall, narrow window that looked out over the overgrown boxwood gardens below.
She stood by the window in the gray light of Monday morning, watching the mist rise from the wet grass.
Her face was swollen on the left side, pulling tight whenever she blinked or swallowed. She had spent the night half-awake, listening to the creak of old timbers and the distant, muffled sound of footsteps pacing across the floorboards in the master suite down the hall. Emilio hadn't slept either. She knew the rhythm of an insomniac’s walk—heavy, measured, endless.
A soft scratch at her door made her turn.
She pulled it open.
Sabina stood in the hallway, wearing a gray wool cardigan over her white nightgown, holding a heavy, leather-bound volume against her chest like a shield. It was an illustrated edition of The Wind in the Willows, its gold-leaf lettering faded almost to nothing.
The child didn't speak. She simply turned around and began walking down the corridor toward the schoolroom at the end of the hall.
Delia followed, a faint, disbelieving smile touching the corner of her sore mouth.
The schoolroom was bright during daylight hours, illuminated by a large skylight set into the vaulted ceiling. A low oak table sat in the center of the room, surrounded by two small wooden chairs and one larger armchair. On the table lay a stack of blank paper, a box of colored pencils, and an old brass pencil sharpener bolted to the wood.
Sabina walked straight to the table, climbed into one of the small chairs, and placed The Wind in the Willows squarely in the center. She didn't open it. She just sat there, her hands folded in her lap, waiting.
Delia pulled out the other small chair and sat down beside her, keeping her movements slow and deliberate.
“Good morning, Sabina,” Delia said softly.
The girl’s eyes flicked to Delia’s face, lingering for a moment on the yellowing bruise near her eye, before dropping down to the book.
“Do you like this story?” Delia asked, reaching out to touch the worn leather spine.
Sabina didn't answer, but she didn't pull away either.
“My favorite character was always Ratty,” Delia continued, her voice light and conversational, pitching the tone she used when she wanted to reach students who had built concrete walls around their minds. “He always thought he wanted adventure, but really, he just wanted a good picnic by the river with his friends.”
Sabina’s small hand reached out. She opened the cover of the book, turning the pages with agonizing slowness until she reached a page near the middle—a full-page color illustration of Mr. Toad’s motor car crashing into a ditch.
She pointed a thin finger at the wreckage of the car, then looked up at Delia.
Her dark eyes were wide, clear, and terrifyingly intelligent.
“It’s fast,” Delia whispered, reading the unspoken thought behind the child’s gaze. “And then it breaks.”
Sabina closed the book with a sharp thwack.
Before Delia could speak again, the heavy door of the schoolroom swung open.
Emilio stood in the doorway. He wore a dark charcoal suit without a tie, his shirt collar unbuttoned, looking as though he had already spent three hours conducting business over encrypted phone lines before the sun came up over Federal Hill.
“Is there a problem?” Emilio asked, his eyes scanning the room, taking in the open book, the blank paper, and Delia’s posture.
“No problem at all, Mr. Santangelo,” Delia said, standing up from her small chair with some difficulty, her knees popping slightly. “We were just getting acquainted.”
Emilio stepped into the room, his large frame making the high-ceilinged space suddenly feel cramped. He looked down at his daughter. A subtle, heartbreaking softening crossed his hard features—a look of a man watching something precious slip through his fingers day by day while he stood powerless to stop it.
“Sabina,” Emilio said quietly. “The car is downstairs for your piano lesson on the North End. Signor Moretti is waiting.”
The child didn't move an inch. Her small body stiffened, her shoulders rising toward her ears in a gesture of absolute, stubborn refusal.
Emilio sighed—a heavy, exhausted sound that seemed to pull years off his life. “You have to go, sweetheart. You know the rules.”
Sabina turned her head away, staring stubbornly at the blank white paper on the table.
Delia watched them. She saw the familiar dynamic—the desperate, well-meaning parental pressure meeting the impenetrable wall of childhood trauma. In her old high school, she would have called the counselor or referred the student to an outside specialist. Here, there were no specialists. There was only a syndicate boss and a silent little girl trapped inside a house of stone.
“Mr. Santangelo,” Delia said before she could stop herself.
Emilio turned his sharp gaze toward her. “Yes?”
“She doesn't want to go to the North End today.”
“Signor Moretti is one of the oldest piano teachers in the city. He’s expected her at nine o'clock—”.
“She doesn't want to go,” Delia repeated, stepping between Emilio and the table. “And forcing her into a car to sit in front of a man who expects her to perform when she can't even speak isn't teaching her how to live. It’s teaching her that her voice doesn't matter as long as she checks a box on your schedule.”
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
Emilio’s eyes narrowed into two slits of cold steel. He took a slow step forward until he was standing less than two feet from Delia, towering over her, his broad shoulders blocking out the light from the skylight.
“You’ve been here for twelve hours, Miss Kavanaugh,” Emilio said, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling bass that vibrated through the floorboards. “You think you know what my daughter needs?”
“I know children,” Delia fired back, refusing to shrink away from him, her chin held high despite the purple bruise throbbing on her cheek. “And I know that when a child has lost everything she ever loved, dragging her out into the city to pretend everything is normal is a good way to make sure she never trusts another human being as long as she lives.”
Sabina slowly turned her head. Her wide, dark eyes darted back and forth between her father and the new teacher, watching the confrontation with the intensity of someone observing a thunderstorm from behind glass.
Emilio stared at Delia for a long, agonizing moment. His jaw muscles clenched so hard a vein throbbed at his temple. For a second, Delia wondered if he was going to fire her on the spot—or worse, pick her up by the collar and throw her out onto Atwells Avenue in the rain.
Instead, Emilio slowly exhaled through his nose.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and pressed a button on the side.
“Carmela,” he said into the device without breaking eye contact with Delia. “Call Signor Moretti. Tell him Sabina’s lesson is canceled for today.”
May you like
He hung up before the housekeeper could answer.
He slipped the phone back into his pocket, turned on his heel without another word, and walked out of the schoolroom, the heavy oak door clicking shut behind him with a final, echoing snap.
