12. Lorenzo #2
I paid attention then. I did it in the launch meeting too, when I backed her vision in front of the people dismissing it. I meant both gestures. Remembering them now makes it harder to hide behind the idea that I never knew how to stand beside her.
She needed that attention after the boat was tied up and the meeting was over. A pleasant evening hadn’t made me a partner in the life she was trying to build here. Why had I acted as though it settled something?
I walk to the window and look out at the herb beds, visible from this angle.
The damage is real, but it’s also recent.
A week ago these plants were healthy, the result of seven months of her care.
The storm and the neglected drainage and my failure to assign anyone to check on her work have cost us ground she spent months gaining.
I can’t fix this myself. But I can make sure someone competent assesses the damage before it gets worse.
I call the groundskeeper and ask him to check the drainage and damaged winter coverings, then meet me at the kitchen garden within the hour.
He repeats the location to be certain before agreeing.
I tell him to bring whatever he needs and to ask for help if the work needs more hands.
Then I sit back down on the bed and pick up the phone again.
Ferro answers on the second ring.
“Don Lorenzo. I have the file here.” Paper rustles at his end. He has kept the inquiry in order while I kept one name out of it.
“The instruction I gave you about excluding the cellar steward from active inquiry.” I keep the notebook open on my knee instead of putting it away. “I’m reversing it. Follow the evidence wherever it leads, without exception.”
“All persons with access, without exception?” He waits for a clear answer. I gave him an explicit restriction; he deserves an equally explicit correction.
“Yes.” I think about the supplier’s message, the written account of Livia asking him to change his records.
“I’m forwarding you a message I received yesterday.
Written corroboration that the cellar steward attempted to alter documentation related to the sabotage.
It’s not proof of contamination, but it’s relevant to your inquiry. ”
I pull up the supplier’s message and forward it while Ferro waits on the line.
“Received. We’ll speak to the supplier.” I hear typing as he adds the message to the file. “He’ll need to confirm the account directly.”
“All original records stay intact.” I put the notebook back on the nightstand. She had to build her own account because she couldn’t trust what I was doing. “My wife’s lawyer may contact you as well. Provide whatever documentation she requests.”
“Understood.” Ferro ends the call, and I sit there with the phone in my hand, looking at Chiara’s journals.
I told the investigators to leave Livia alone. I protected her while my wife gathered evidence on her own, walked into the valley alone, defended herself alone. Chiara doesn’t know I gave that order. She’s going to find out, and she’s going to be angry, and she has every right to be.
I should tell her myself. Before she hears it from the investigators or the lawyer. Before she has another reason to think I’m hiding things from her.
I dial her number.
“You read the notebooks.” She answers without a greeting, and I can’t blame her. Permission to read the records wasn’t an invitation to call.
“Yes. I saw how much work went into them.” There’s wind against her microphone.
I wonder whether she’s in the groves beside the cottage, then stop myself asking where she is as though I’m entitled to an answer.
“The trial strip, the drainage, all those months of records. I didn’t know the extent of it. ”
“You knew I was a botanist.” I look at the open notebook beside me. Of course my surprise would sound insulting. “That wasn’t new information.”
“I knew it the way you know a fact you’ve been told.” I stand and pace toward the window, needing to move. “I didn’t connect it to the woman with dirt under her fingernails at breakfast. I didn’t think about what it meant that you got up before dawn and came back tired. I didn’t ask.”
“No. You didn’t.” She gives me no easier version to agree with, and I leave the admission where it belongs.
“I need to tell you something else.” I leave the window and sit again.
I can’t make her work an introduction to another selective account of my mistakes.
“About the investigation. When Ferro and Mancini reported their findings, I gave them an instruction. I told them to exclude Livia from active inquiry. To focus elsewhere.”
The silence on the other end of the line stretches long enough that I check the screen to make sure we’re still connected.
“You told them not to investigate her.” The wind noise stops abruptly. Whatever she’s doing, she has stopped to hear this. “While I was gathering evidence on my own. While I was walking into the valley getting spat at. You were protecting her from the people you hired to find the truth.”
“Yes.” I resist the urge to lead with the fact that no records were destroyed. That is the minimum, not a defense. “I reversed the instruction this morning. They’re following all leads now, without exception. I forwarded them the supplier’s account as well.”
“This morning. More than a week after I brought you the evidence.” I hear her draw breath, and I wait for what she has every right to say. “You asked me to trust an investigation you wouldn’t let include her.”
“I’ve been wrong this whole time.” I stop pacing and face the window, looking out at the gardens she tended while I failed her.
“I believed you were innocent from the beginning. I just couldn’t make myself look at Livia.
I protected her at your expense, and I will regret that for the rest of my life. ”
“Then put that in writing too.” I reach for the pen beside her notebooks before she finishes. “Send it to me and my lawyer. I want a record of what you told them and what you’ve changed.”
“I will.” I write it on the back of an envelope, leaving her pages untouched. Her request is reasonable. The fact that she has to make it is mine to live with.
“Was there anything else?” I have nearly used up the chance she gave me by answering. Her question offers no forgiveness, only a chance to finish.