Say Cheese

"Say cheese, Mr. Grumpy!"

Clara Bennett heard her daughter's voice and dropped a cleaning cloth into the bucket at her feet.

Mia stood in the middle of the marble foyer, her blue dress brushing her knees, an old camera pressed crookedly against her face. In front of her stood Lorenzo Duca.

The man had returned early.

That was Clara's first thought. Her second was that her three-year-old was standing between him and four men who carried guns beneath their jackets.

"Mia, come here."

Her daughter lowered the camera just enough to reveal one enormous brown eye.

"He didn't smile yet."

One of the guards stepped forward. Lorenzo lifted two fingers, and the man stopped so abruptly that his shoe squeaked against the floor.

Clara crossed the foyer.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Duca. She was supposed to be with Rosa."

"Rosa said wait," Mia explained. "I waited."

"How long?"

"A lot."

It had probably been thirty seconds.

Clara reached for her daughter, but Lorenzo moved first. He bent one knee, bringing his face level with the camera.

He was so large that the movement seemed to change the arrangement of the room. His white shirt strained across his shoulders. Dark ink disappeared beneath his rolled sleeves, and a thin scar divided one eyebrow.

For eleven months Clara had cleaned his house, collected her wages, and kept her child out of his way.

Now he was kneeling in front of Mia.

He wasn't looking at her face.

"Where did you get that?"

His voice was quiet enough to make Clara more frightened than shouting would have.

Mia proudly offered him the camera.

"In the dusty room."

His hand closed around the leather strap. Beside his thumb, a crooked line of blue stitches crossed a torn section.

The color left his face.

Clara had never seen it happen to someone so visibly. A moment earlier he had looked irritated by the world. Now he looked as though he had forgotten where he was.

"Which room?" he asked.

Mia pointed toward the west corridor.

"The one with the blanket chair."

Clara's stomach tightened. The old sitting room had been opened that morning so a leaking window could be repaired. Adella had asked her to move the covered furniture away from the wall.

"She must have followed me earlier," Clara said. "I didn't realize she'd picked anything up. I'll put it back."

She reached for the strap.

Lorenzo released it immediately.

"No."

Clara stopped.

Mia studied him with frank disappointment.

"You still look grumpy."

"Mia."

"He does, Mommy."

Behind Lorenzo, a guard looked very carefully at the front door.

Lorenzo turned the camera slightly. There was a shallow dent near the winding lever and a faded flower sticker beside the viewfinder.

His thumb stopped on the sticker.

"Did anyone give you permission to take this?"

Mia's mouth drooped.

"No."

Clara crouched beside her. "Then we return it and say we're sorry. Remember? We ask before taking somebody else's things."

"I'm sorry," Mia told him.

The camera was heavy in her hands. Clara slid a palm beneath it to help.

For several seconds Lorenzo said nothing.

Then he asked, "Why did you choose it?"

Mia looked down at the scratched black body.

"Mommy takes pictures. I wanted one too."

Clara felt a ridiculous urge to explain that she used her phone now, that there had once been classes and a secondhand digital camera, that she hadn't taught her daughter to rummage through private rooms.

None of those explanations seemed useful.

"It was in a box on the floor," Mia added. "All by itself."

Lorenzo glanced toward the corridor.

"You can hold it for now."

Clara looked up.

"Are you sure?"

"Keep the strap around your wrist," he told Mia. "Use both hands."

Mia immediately obeyed. She rarely obeyed Clara that quickly.

"Like this?"

He adjusted the loop so it wouldn't slip over her small fingers.

"Like that."

She raised the camera again.

Clara caught her elbow. "Not now, sweetheart."

Lorenzo stood. For a moment his gaze met Clara's, and she saw something she couldn't name before it disappeared behind his usual expression.

"The west room stays closed when the workers leave."

"Of course."

He walked into his office. His guards followed, except for the youngest, who stayed near the front entrance and let out a breath once the office door shut.

Mia waved at him.

"You can smile instead."

He did.

Clara carried her daughter back to the kitchen, the camera wedged carefully between them.

Rosa turned from the stove.

"There you are. I looked behind the pantry door twice."

"She went to greet Mr. Duca," Clara said.

Rosa's wooden spoon paused halfway to the pot.

"Oh, sweetheart."

"He let me keep it." Mia held up her prize.

Rosa looked at the blue stitches. Then she put down the spoon.

"Where did she find that?"

Clara told her.

The kitchen, usually full of the cook's radio and the clatter of pans, seemed suddenly too quiet.

"What is it?" Clara asked.

"You should ask Adella."

"Rosa."

The cook glanced toward Mia, who was attempting to photograph a basket of lemons through the wrong side of the viewfinder.

"It belonged to his mother."

Clara looked at the camera again.

There were few photographs of Eleanor Duca in the parts of the house she cleaned. A woman in a pale dress stood beside a younger Lorenzo in one hallway frame. He looked almost cheerful in it.

"I didn't know," Clara said.

"No. You wouldn't."

That evening, after Mia had fallen asleep in their cottage behind the main house, Clara found Adella folding napkins in the linen room.

The older woman listened without interrupting. When Clara mentioned the camera, her fingers stopped smoothing the cloth.

"I should return it myself," Clara said. "I thought he was just being kind."

Adella gave her a long look.

"He was. That doesn't mean it was easy."

"Rosa said it was Eleanor's."

"She took it everywhere. Lorenzo gave it to her when he was a boy. He saved for nearly a year."

Clara remembered the way his thumb had rested on the faded flower.

"Was it in that room all this time?"

Adella set down the napkin.

"After the accident, yes."

"What accident?"

"Fifteen years ago. Eleanor's car left the road during a storm."

Clara looked toward the west corridor. Earlier that day the room had been nothing more than another job: water under a window, sheets over furniture, dust caught in the curtains.

"The camera was in the car?"

Adella nodded.

"It came back from the wreck with her other belongings. Until this morning, I hadn't seen Lorenzo touch it since."