Chapter 7 - The Address Written in Pencil
The Rhode Island address belonged to a retired shipping dispatcher named Ada Salazar. She had worked for one of our subcontractors before leaving the industry. I remembered her only as a voice on conference calls: patient, exacting, and unwilling to sign a report she hadn't seen.
The photograph identified a second-floor apartment in Pawtucket. I wanted to get in the car and drive there myself. The idea of waiting while Adrian might be alive somewhere felt unbearable.
Nora refused.
"You promised you would stop deciding everything for everyone," she said. "Let's tell the detective first."
We did. The detective confirmed Ada was a real person and that an officer could make contact without exposing her address to Graham or my company. Our independent attorney advised us not to barge into a potential witness's home, and Nora made me promise Emmy would never be used as a way to force Adrian to come forward.
"If he's alive," Nora said, "he owes her an explanation. But she doesn't owe him a performance."
I began to protest, then stopped. She was right again.
We waited in a small family room outside the ward. A vending machine hummed beside a window overlooking the parking garage. Nora took out Isabel's photograph and traced the crease near Adrian's face.
"She knew," she said. "Eleven months ago. Isabel knew he was alive and never told me."
"Maybe she didn't know for sure."
"She wrote his address into a photograph. She made contingency plans. She told Emmy to hold on to a card. My sister was keeping a secret while I helped bury her."
Grief sounded different when it acquired anger. I had heard it in my mother's voice when she spoke about my father. I had never really listened.
"I'm sorry," I told Nora.
She looked almost offended. "Don't apologize for her. I loved her. I can be furious with her and love her at the same time."
That was an idea I wished I'd learned when Adrian was young.
In the afternoon, Ada agreed to speak with the detective and our lawyer. She consented to let Nora and me hear her account by speakerphone, with the understanding that some details might remain confidential while investigators worked.
"Your son came to me in bad shape," Ada said. "Not long after he went missing. He had bruised ribs, a broken tooth, and no faith left in the people who were supposed to protect him. I helped him get medical care. He spent months moving between safe places because somebody from the docks kept finding him."
I gripped the edge of the table.
"Who was finding him?"
"People associated with Graham Voss. I didn't see Graham give an order. That's important. Adrian said he had proof of documents being altered, but people were treating him like a criminal. He was afraid for Isabel and their little girl."
"Why didn't he go to the police?"
"He did report an assault. Later he worked through an attorney who helped preserve documents and arrange witness interviews. Those things take time. Some people he approached wouldn't talk. Some were scared. And when he did try to reconnect with Isabel, he found out how ill she was."
Nora wiped her cheeks with the heel of her hand. "He saw her?"
"Once, in person. Last winter. She told him Emmy was sick and that he couldn't come into her life and disappear again. She told him to make the situation safe before he made promises."
"Was that eleven months ago?" I asked.
"Around then. He marked a picture so she would know where to send news if she changed her mind."
A part of me wanted to curse Isabel for making that choice. A larger part knew she had spent years making impossible decisions because I had made the first wrong one.
"Where is Adrian now?" I asked.
Ada was silent for several seconds.
"I cannot give you a man's location just because you're his father," she said. "I will ask him whether he wants to speak. He's not a package you can track."
The old Luca Ferraro would have demanded more. The man in the family room thought of a little girl saying please don't take him, and answered, "Please ask."
Later that evening, Dana told us Emmy's compatible red-cell unit had arrived at the blood bank for final verification. The hematology team was reassessing her symptoms and laboratory values. The news made Nora sit down hard in the nearest chair, her hands shaking with relief and dread together.
At eight thirty, Ada called again. This time she spoke quietly.
"I found him," she said. "He knows about the hospital. He wants to see his daughter."
I closed my eyes.
May you like
"And me?"
"He said that depends on whether you've finally learned to hear a complete sentence."
