Open Your Mouth

"Open your mouth."

Adrian Moretti looked at the spoon in front of his face.

Then he looked at the child holding it.

She stood on the leather chair beside him, one small hand braced against his shoulder. Her yellow dress had a rabbit on the pocket. There was oatmeal on the rabbit.

Across the breakfast table, five senior executives waited for someone else to react first.

"Who," Adrian asked carefully, "are you?"

"Mia."

"And why are you standing on my chair?"

She glanced down, apparently checking whether he had misunderstood the furniture.

"I can't reach from the floor."

His chief operating officer lowered his eyes. Adrian suspected the man was smiling.

"I meant why are you feeding me?"

"Rosa said you didn't eat."

That explained the bowl. It did not explain why his cook had allowed a three-year-old to interrupt a meeting about a ninety-million-dollar acquisition.

Mia pushed the spoon closer.

"It's getting drippy."

Adrian had dismissed employees for less persistence. He had ended negotiations because someone presumed to tell him what to do in his own house.

He opened his mouth.

The oatmeal was lukewarm and contained too much cinnamon.

Mia nodded approvingly.

"See?"

He swallowed. "I was aware of the procedure."

"Then why didn't you do it?"

At the far end of the table, someone coughed into a napkin.

Adrian looked up.

The coughing stopped.

"We were discussing something important," he told her.

"You can chew and listen. Mommy does."

Before he could respond, she gave him another spoonful.

By the fourth, his acquisition director had closed the presentation folder.

By the seventh, Adrian knew three things about Mia: she disliked blueberries because they burst without warning, her stuffed rabbit was named Rabbit, and she believed his house needed a dog.

"It does not need a dog."

"A little one."

"Especially not a little one."

She considered him over the bowl.

"Why don't you smile?"

The question landed with an intimacy no one at that table had earned.

Adrian looked at her. She was not mocking him. She seemed genuinely puzzled by the omission, as though she had noticed a missing button.

"I think I forgot how."

Mia nodded slowly.

"Mommy forgot too when Daddy went to heaven."

The room changed around them.

Adrian felt her fingers tighten against his shoulder as she scraped the last oatmeal from the bowl.

"But she does sometimes now," Mia added. "I can help you."

The doorway filled with a woman in a pale blue housekeeping uniform.

She stopped so abruptly that her shoes squeaked against the floor.

"Mia."

It was not loud. The child straightened anyway.

"I gave him breakfast."

"I can see that. Come down, sweetheart. Right now."

Adrian caught Mia around the waist before she attempted to climb over the chair arm. The woman hurried forward and took her, her fingers brushing his wrist.

"Mr. Moretti, I'm so sorry. She was supposed to stay in the kitchen. It won't happen again."

He recognized her now. Elena Rossi. Rosa had recommended her three weeks earlier.

Usually he saw only the evidence of her work: polished wood, clean glass, fresh towels. Now a strand of dark hair had escaped her clip, and her cheeks were pink with alarm.

She was younger than he had realized.

"Your daughter?"

"Yes. Her sitter canceled this morning. Rosa said she could stay with her until lunch, and I thought—" She stopped. "I should have asked permission."

Mia looked between them.

"Did I do bad?"

Elena's expression softened immediately.

"You were trying to help. But we talked about going into rooms without asking."

"The door was open."

"That isn't the same thing."

Adrian looked toward his executives.

"We'll finish at the office. Eleven o'clock."

Chairs moved at once.

Elena stepped out of their way, holding Mia's hand. Her shoulders had become rigid. She watched the men leave as if each departing briefcase took another portion of her employment with it.

When they were alone, she spoke before he could.

"Please take the time off my wages. Whatever I've cost you."

He glanced at the empty bowl.

"For breakfast?"

"For the interruption."

"That meeting would have continued for another hour. Your daughter may have saved me money."

She studied his face, uncertain whether he was making fun of her.

He disliked that uncertainty more than he should have.

"You're not being dismissed, Elena."

Her name seemed to surprise her.

"Thank you."

Mia lifted the bowl. "Can I have a job too?"

"You already have one," Elena said. "Putting your shoes on the correct feet."

Adrian looked down.

The shoes were on the wrong feet.

For a moment, something unfamiliar moved through his chest.

"Whenever childcare falls through, bring her," he said.

Elena's eyes returned to his.

"You don't have to do that."

"I'm aware."

"She asks a lot of questions."

"So do my executives. Hers are shorter."

This time her mouth moved before she could stop it.

A small smile. Reluctant, but unmistakable.

He wanted to see it again.

The realization irritated him.

"The kitchen and the back sitting room," he added. "Rosa can show you where she can play."

"Of course. Thank you, Mr. Moretti."

"Adrian," Mia said experimentally.

Elena closed her eyes.

"Mr. Moretti to you."

"Adrian is fine," he said.

Mother and daughter looked at him with identical suspicion.

He picked up his coffee before either could ask why.

That afternoon, he found a drawing beside the contracts on his desk.

Three figures stood beneath an orange sun. One was very tall. One wore blue. The smallest had yellow lines surrounding her head.

He took it to the kitchen.

"Why am I wearing a crown?"

Mia looked up from her crayons.

"That's your hair."

Rosa turned toward the stove with suspicious speed.

Elena set down the cloth in her hand.

"She wasn't in your study again. I left the drawing there. She wanted you to have it."

Adrian looked at the three figures.

"Which one is you?"

"The pretty one," Mia said.

"That narrows it down."

Elena laughed.

It was brief and surprised, and it did something worse to him than the smile had.

He glanced at her. She was already looking away.

"We're leaving in ten minutes," she told Mia. "Put the lids back on."

"Can we stay for dinner?"

"No, sweetheart. We have food at home."

Adrian opened his mouth.

Elena looked at him before he spoke.

"And you have work," she said.

It should have annoyed him, being anticipated and refused in his own kitchen.

Instead, he found himself wondering what she cooked at home.

He left with the drawing.

The following morning, his acquisition director arrived carrying revised figures and a bowl of oatmeal.

Adrian stared at the bowl.

"Rosa," the man said quickly.

"Set it down."

"Would you like me to—"

"Finish that sentence carefully."

The man sat.

An hour later, after the meeting ended, Adrian heard a soft scraping beneath his desk.

He looked down.

Two small shoes protruded from the space beside his knees.

"Mia."

The shoes stopped moving.

"I asked this time."

"You asked if you could sit and draw."

"My crayon fell."

He moved his chair back.

"Have you found it?"

"No. There's a flower."

"There are several flowers. The desk is carved."

Something clicked.

Adrian went still.

Mia wriggled backward and emerged holding a brass key.

"This was inside."

He took it from her.

The number stamped into the bow was small, but he knew it immediately.

417.

His father had once carried that key on a separate ring. Adrian remembered the sound it made against the man's watch when he reached across a table.

After Vittorio died, the bank had told him the associated box had been closed.

Elena appeared in the doorway carrying fresh water.

"Mia, Rosa said you—"

Her eyes dropped to Adrian's hand.

The glass struck the edge of the tray.

He caught it before it fell.

For a second they stood close enough that he could see the pulse beating beneath her jaw.

"Elena?"

She stared at the key.

"Where did she find that?"

"Under my desk."

Her face had lost its color.

Adrian set the tray down.

"You recognize it."

Elena looked toward her daughter, then back at him.

"My husband had one exactly like it."