I knew his face from the large portrait in the Moretti family home, where he stood beside Alexander in a dark suit, one hand resting lightly on his son’s shoulder.
He had died before Alexander and I married.
I had met him only once, at a company dinner, when he was already ill and too tired to stay long.
Now I sat with his photograph in my hands, wondering what he had promised to keep secret.
Daniel arrived that evening with a fuller set of company records.
He found me in the kitchen, the papers from the previous packet still spread across the table.
I showed him the photograph and the handwritten words.
He examined it without touching the writing.
“Do you recognize the clinic?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Do you remember your mother mentioning Mr. Moretti?”
“No.”
I tried to recall the stories she had told me, the names she had dropped over the years.
