Chapter 5: Letters She Should Have Burned
She called three days after the wedding.
Fabio and I were still in the hotel — we had pushed the honeymoon back by a week, which I had insisted on and Fabio had resisted until I pointed out that flying to Portugal while his mother was in possession of mystery letters was not my idea of relaxing.
He answered on the second ring.
I sat on the edge of the bed and listened to his half of the conversation.
"Yes." Pause.
"No, Elena will be there." Pause.
"That's not negotiable, Vivienne." Longer pause.
"Fine.
Two o'clock."
He set the phone down.
"She wants to meet at her hotel," he said.
"She says she has the letters."
"Do you believe her?"
He thought about it.
"I believe she has something.
Whether it says what she claims it says—" He shook his head.
"With her, I never know."
Vivienne's hotel was on the other side of the city.
Forty-third floor.
A suite with a view of the river that probably cost more per night than most people's monthly rent.
She answered the door in a silk blouse and tailored trousers, her hair perfect, her expression composed.
She had reset herself completely.
"Elena," she said, as though we were old friends.
"I'm glad you came."
I said nothing.
She led us to a sitting area.
A folder sat on the coffee table.
Thick.
Cream-colored.
Tied with a black ribbon that looked almost ceremonial.
"Sit, please," she said.
We sat.
She did not sit.
She stood behind the chair across from us, both hands resting on its back, and looked at Fabio.
"Before I show you these," she said, "I want you to understand something.
Your father was not the man you think he was."
"You've said that."
"I mean it specifically." She untied the ribbon.
"He was controlling, Fabio.
From the beginning.
He monitored the accounts because he controlled the accounts.
Every purchase I made required his approval.
Every trip.
Every gift." She opened the folder.
"I didn't st*al from him.
I took what I was entitled to.
What any equal partner in a marriage is entitled to."
Fabio looked at the papers she slid across the table.
They were letters.
Handwritten.
His father's script, but younger — looser, less deliberate than the letter read at the wedding.
Fabio picked up the first one.
He read it slowly.
His face gave nothing away.
He set it down and picked up the second.
I watched Vivienne watch him.
She was looking for something in his expression.
A crack.
A softening.
The moment a son begins to doubt his father.
Fabio set the second letter down.
"He had a temper," he said.
"Yes."
"He said things he shouldn't have said."
"Frequently."
"And you felt trapped."
Vivienne's hands relaxed slightly on the chair back.
"Yes.
Exactly."
"So you took money from the household accounts for three years and hid it in a separate account in your name."
Her hands tightened again.
"It wasn't hiding.
It was protecting myself."
"The account was in a name that wasn't yours," Fabio said.
"A variation of your maiden name.
With an address in a city you didn't live in."
Silence.
"Dad's letter mentioned that," Fabio said.
"The attorneys confirmed it."
Vivienne sat down now.
Not because she chose to — because something went out of her posture.
"He was going to leave me with nothing," she said.
"I had to think ahead."
"And when he found out, instead of facing it, you left.
You left me."
"I left him."
"I was six years old, Vivienne.
I was in the house."
The room was very quiet.
Outside the window, the river moved.
A boat crossed slowly from one bank to the other.
"These letters," Fabio said, touching the folder, "show me that my father was difficult.
I already knew that.
They don't show me anything that justifies what you did to him.
Or what you did at my wedding." He stood.
"And they don't change the documentation the attorneys have."
Vivienne looked up at him.
Something moved across her face — not quite fear, but adjacent to it.
"What are you planning to do?" she asked.
"I haven't decided."
"Fabio—"
"I said I haven't decided." He picked up his jacket from the arm of the chair.
"But I want you to understand something clearly.
Whatever I decide, it will have nothing to do with Elena.
If you go after her, if you try to make her the reason for any of this, I will stop being undecided very quickly."
Vivienne's eyes moved to me.
I held her gaze and said nothing.
She looked back at Fabio.
"I'm your mother."
"I know what you are," he said.
He walked to the door.
I followed.
Behind us, Vivienne said, very quietly: "There's one more letter.
I didn't put it in the folder.
I wasn't sure I was going to show it to you."
Fabio stopped.
He didn't turn around.
"What does it say?" he asked.
"It says your father wasn't the only one who knew about the account," Vivienne said.
"Someone helped me set it up.
May you like
Someone you still trust."
Now he turned.
