Chapter 1 - The tooth beside the pool
My daughter’s tooth lay between two drops of melted birthday-cake frosting.
That is what I remember.
Not Bianca’s emerald dress.
Not the twenty-foot pool.
Not the string quartet under the pergola.
Not the seventy guests pretending not to stare.
A tiny white tooth.
Emmie was eight.
At eight, children still lose baby teeth naturally.
That one had been slightly loose already.
The dentist would tell me later that Bianca’s slap accelerated what probably would have happened within weeks.
That did not make it acceptable.
Emmie’s lower lip was bleeding.
Her cheek was already turning red.
I knelt.
“Look at me.”
Her eyes found mine.
“Daddy.”
“I’m here.”
“Did she knock it out?”
“Yes.”
“Am I ugly?”
That almost destroyed my composure more effectively than Bianca ever could.
“No.”
I took out a clean handkerchief.
Pressed it gently against Emmie’s mouth.
“Not even slightly.”
She sniffed.
Then pointed.
“She said this party should have been hers.”
I stood.
Bianca was ten feet away.
My cousin.
Forty-one.
Beautiful.
Controlled.
One of those people who could humiliate a waiter and somehow make the waiter apologize.
I crossed the patio.
I hit her once.
Open hand.
Hard.
She stumbled backward.
Caught the edge of a lounge chair.
The chair collapsed beneath her.
Guests gasped.
I should have stopped before the slap.
Emmie was already beside my security team.
Bianca was no longer touching her.
That fact would matter later.
Bianca stood.
Touched her cheek.
Then hissed:
“Hit me again, and your brother will hear everything.”
I looked at her.
My younger brother, Luca Moretti, and I had not spoken socially in nine months.
But I knew exactly why.
I leaned closer.
“That bastard already learned his lesson before you did.”
Bianca went pale.
That was the moment I realized she believed Luca had kept something from me.
May you like
He had.
Just not as much as she thought.
