Chapter 8 - VICTOR ROMANO’S MOTHER
Three years after Lucia walked through the double doors, Victor still did not call her Mom consistently.
Sometimes he did.
Usually by accident.
“Mom, pass the salt.”
Then silence.
Lucia would pass salt and not react.
Good.
No performance.
Their relationship developed through repetition.
Tuesday dinners.
Baseball games Victor pretended to dislike.
Arguments about money.
Lucia hated drivers.
Victor hated her taking subway.
Compromise:
Driver at night.
Subway day.
Ridiculous.
Normal.
Lucia bought a townhouse in Brooklyn.
Not mansion.
Victor complained stairs.
She said:
“I have knees.”
He said:
“For now.”
She threw napkin.
Family.
Her wealth settled around her slowly.
Independent advisers.
Taxes.
Philanthropy.
She created no “Lucia Romano Foundation.”
Instead funded existing organizations around financial abuse, psychiatric patient rights, and legal aid.
Anonymously sometimes.
Publicly when transparency required.
No heroic reinvention.
She also spent money selfishly.
Good.
Bought paintings.
Traveled to Sicily.
Upgraded baseball seats.
Victor teased.
“You’ve become corrupt.”
“Luxury seating is restitution.”
He laughed.
Then one year she did something unexpected.
She invited Evelyn to communicate through mediator.
Victor was furious.
“Why?”
“Because I want to hear her version without a lawyer performing it.”
“You heard enough.”
“That is your opinion.”
“She tried to drug you.”
“Yes.”
“Frame Nina.”
“Yes.”
“Keep you away.”
“Yes.”
“And you want tea?”
“No tea.”
Lucia smiled darkly.
“Water in sealed bottles.”
Victor almost laughed.
Mediation occurred in correctional setting while Evelyn still serving sentence.
Lucia went with facilitator.
No Victor.
Her choice.
Evelyn entered.
They had not sat face-to-face privately in twenty-seven years.
For a while neither spoke.
Then Evelyn:
“You look well.”
Lucia said:
“You look terrible.”
Evelyn laughed unexpectedly.
Good.
Then Lucia asked:
“Why me?”
Evelyn frowned.
“You know.”
“I know money. I know Lorenzo. I know company. I want your reason.”
Evelyn looked down.
“I envied you.”
Simple.
Lucia waited.
“You had everything I wanted before I knew you.”
Marriage into Romano.
Child.
Shares.
Social position.
Lorenzo’s attention.
Evelyn had come from less wealth but not poor.
Ambitious.
Brilliant.
Lorenzo trusted her financial judgment.
She believed Lucia wasted position.
Depression.
Doubts about company.
Desire to sell shares.
Evelyn saw instability.
Also opportunity.
“When the boat accident happened, I thought it was temporary.”
Lucia almost laughed.
Everyone.
Temporary.
“Then?”
“Lorenzo asked what we should do.”
“And you said keep me dead.”
“Eventually.”
Evelyn admitted advising narrative consolidation.
Her phrase.
Lucia hated.
“Did you forge my signature?”
“No.”
“Did Samuel?”
Evelyn’s face changed.
“I believe so.”
There.
First direct.
“Did you ask him?”
“No.”
“Did you know?”
“I knew after.”
“When?”
“Within a year.”
“And you kept shares.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because by then I believed they belonged to the life Lorenzo and I had built.”
Entitlement after possession.
Then Lucia:
“Did you love Victor?”
Evelyn cried immediately.
“Yes.”
“Did that make it easier to keep me away?”
“Yes.”
There.
If Lucia returned, Evelyn might lose role as mother too.
Not just money.
Then dinner-night plan.
Evelyn admitted intention:
She wanted Lucia disoriented and ill in front of Victor.
Then call ambulance.
Medical records would reveal old psychiatric history.
Press maybe.
Board maybe.
She wanted Victor to see her as unstable claimant.
Not kill.
The corrosive component?
She said she requested a small quantity of restoration solution believing it was a non-toxic bittering compound used for metal cleaning? Hmm need not technical. Better: she believed it was a milder maintenance liquid and did not understand concentration. Still reckless. Jury accepted no proven intent severe injury.
“Why use anything like that?”
“To make her vomit.”
Lucia stared.
Evelyn lowered eyes.
Ugly.
Then Nina.
“Yes. I planned for suspicion to fall on her.”
No excuse.
“Why a maid?”
“Because people believe rich women over maids.”
Lucia felt sick.
At least honest.
Then:
“Did you do it to Maria?”
Evelyn looked away.
Long silence.
“I placed the bottle.”
There.
Old case finally answered.
Lucia inhaled.
“Why?”
“Lorenzo had taken his medication incorrectly. If doctors believed household mismanagement, they might restrict discharge or bring private nurses I couldn’t control. I panicked.”
So Evelyn planted bottle in Maria’s cart to make error look employee-related.
No intent to harm Lorenzo.
Cover mistake.
Then fired Maria.
Another scapegoat.
Evelyn’s pattern.
Lucia said:
“You make other people carry your mistakes.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Yes.”
That line broke something.
Lucia did not forgive.
She left.
But before leaving:
“Maria deserves to hear that.”
Evelyn eventually gave sworn statement through counsel.
Because old civil settlement review.
She admitted planting bottle.
Maria received further compensation.
No criminal prosecution due time and circumstances.
Record publicly corrected if Maria wanted.
She wanted.
Evelyn’s admission became part of employee review.
Nina heard.
She sat in silence.
Pattern confirmed.
Not just suspicion.
Then Victor visited Evelyn again.
This time not question love.
He asked:
“Will you apologize to Nina?”
“I offered.”
“She declined.”
“Then no.”
Good.
“Will you respect that?”
“Yes.”
“Maria?”
“She accepted written statement.”
“Lucia?”
“She did not ask apology.”
Victor nodded.
Then Evelyn said:
“You think I’m a monster.”
Victor looked at her.
“No.”
She seemed surprised.
“That would be easier.”
He had learned.
“You did monstrous things. You also raised me.”
Evelyn cried.
“Do I get to be your mother?”
He thought.
“I don’t know what that means anymore.”
“Visit?”
“Sometimes.”
“Letters?”
“Maybe.”
No title guarantee.
No erasure.
Specific relationship.
Evelyn later served sentence and entered supervised release.
She did not return to Romano boards.
Civil settlement stripped most disputed equity.
She retained enough personal wealth to live comfortably.
No poverty punishment.
She moved to Connecticut.
Contact with Victor limited.
Lucia none, by choice.
Nina none.
Maria none.
Boundaries.
Then Victor and Lucia faced another difficult thing.
Lorenzo’s grave.
Lucia had never visited.
Victor asked.
“Come with me?”
She said no.
He looked hurt.
Then she went alone a month later.
Not tell him until after.
At grave she said nothing dramatic.
Standing before Lorenzo Romano’s name, she felt anger.
Love too.
They had married young.
He had once danced badly in kitchen.
Held newborn Victor.
Then betrayed.
Whole.
She left flowers?
No.
She brought no object.
She said:
“You should have let me hate you while you were alive.”
Then left.
Later told Victor.
He understood.
Lorenzo robbed both of confrontation.
His recording helped truth.
Did not make courage retroactive.
Victor changed company memorial.
Founder portrait remained with contextual plaque.
Annual founder gala renamed Romano Group Service Dinner.
No worship.
Some family angry.
Victor said:
“We can remember without pretending.”
The company survived.
Nina graduated associate degree first.
Lucia attended?
Nina invited Mrs. Bell and her friend, not Romanos.
Good.
Victor learned after from HR newsletter.
He sent a card.
No check.
Card:
Congratulations. No reply needed.
Nina smiled.
That was progress.
Then two years later bachelor’s.
She invited Lucia.
Why?
Because they had become friends outside employment.
Victor not invited.
He joked.
Nina said:
“You’ll survive.”
He did.
Lucia cried at graduation like aunt.
Nina’s mother was dead.
The feeling complicated.
Good complicated.
After ceremony Lucia said:
“You know I’m not replacing anyone.”
Nina looked.
“I know.”
Again.
No replacement roles.
People can matter without titles.
Victor and Lucia’s Tuesday dinners eventually became the place where they learned the least dramatic facts about each other.
Lucia hated olives.
Victor loved them.
Victor slept with television on when alone.
Lucia could not stand background noise.
She read murder mysteries but skipped endings when she disliked a detective.
Victor had kept one toy sailboat from childhood in a locked cabinet for decades because Lucia gave it to him.
He did not tell her until year four.
When he finally showed it, Lucia stared.
“I bought that at an airport gift shop.”
Victor looked offended.
“It was sacred.”
“It cost twelve dollars.”
He laughed.
That exchange mattered.
Memory had made Lucia larger than person.
Dead mother.
Missing mother.
Billion-dollar claimant.
Victim.
None of those labels included bad taste in toys.
Victor needed ordinary disappointment.
Lucia needed to stop treating every meeting as repayment for absence.
They learned to end dinner angry sometimes.
Once they fought over Lorenzo.
Victor said:
“He did love us.”
Lucia snapped:
“Love is not useful if every decision serves himself.”
Victor stood.
“So none of it counted?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You always make him sound like a calculation.”
“Because you still make him sound like a father first.”
Silence.
Both unfair partly.
Lucia left.
No contact three days.
Then Victor texted:
Dinner Tuesday?
Lucia replied:
Yes.
Repair without grand apology.
At dinner Lucia said:
“I know he loved you.”
Victor answered:
“I know he harmed you.”
There.
Two truths held without winner.
That became their rhythm.
Victor also asked about Lucia’s life after disappearance without turning it into punishment.
Friends.
Jobs.
A woman named Ruth who let her sleep on couch for six months.
A small accounting firm that hired her despite gaps.
Anthony Marino’s family.
A failed relationship in her forties because she could not explain why she panicked when men asked about children.
Lucia had a life outside Romano tragedy.
Victor listened.
He stopped saying:
“All those years you should have been here.”
Not because feeling vanished.
Because repeating made every memory an accusation.
Sometimes Lucia told him anyway:
“I wish you were there.”
That was different.
Grief offered.
Not debt demanded.
When Lucia later updated her will, she did not leave Victor every dollar.
He was already rich.
Some equity went to him because she wanted.
Much went to independent charitable trusts and cousins who had supported her.
Victor did not object.
Good.
Inheritance no longer proved relationship.
At signing, Lucia joked:
“If you challenge this after I die, I will haunt you.”
Victor said:
“You already did for twenty-four years.”
May you like
Lucia threw a pen.
Family.
