The Disobedient Virgin

In the final months of his life, my client regretted the errors of his youth and sought to make amends to those he had wronged. In accordance with his wishes, I enclose a small token of his concern for your mother. Please give it to her on Senhor Ramirez’s behalf.

Jake scooped up the unopened box, almost crushed it in his fist. Twenty minutes later, jaw set, mouth a grim line, he marched through the lobby of his mother’s apartment building on Sutton Place

. The doorman began to greet him but Jake didn’t break stride as he headed for the elevator.

“Don’t announce me,” he said.

He had a key to his mother’s apartment but he didn’t use it. Instead, he stabbed the bell hard enough to damn near shove it through the jamb. He saw the peephole slide aside and then the door swung open.

“Joaquim,” his mother said happily. Her smile faded. “Joaquim? What’s happened?”

“I don’t know, Mother,” Jake said coldly. “You tell me.”

He stepped into the foyer, elbowed the door closed and thrust the envelope at her. He watched her look at it, heard her soft intake of breath as she read the postmark. Her eyes flashed to his.

“Read it,” he snapped.

Sarah nodded. Her hands, her entire body, trembled. Who would write to her son from Brazil? Who would write something that would make her son so furious?

Who? she thought, as her long-buried secret rose like a wraith from the distant past and revealed itself in black ink on creamy vellum.

Sarah read the letter. She looked up, searching desperately for the right words, the ones that would ease the anger, the pain in her boy’s eyes.

“Joaquim. It was all a long time ago…”

Jake thrust a small white box at her. “He sent this for you.”

Sarah stared at the box. “I don’t—I can’t imagine—Joaquim, please, you must listen—”

“Open it!”

She did. An emerald ring winked up at her, its heart as cold as her own. A card was tucked alongside.

For Sarah, it read. My beautiful dove.

Sarah Reece looked up at her son. And fainted.

She was on the sofa when she came to, a cold cloth on her brow. Joaquim squatted beside her.

“Are you all right?” he said. His tone was still chilly but there was, at least, concern in his eyes.

She nodded. “I’m fine.” He held out a hand as she started to sit up and she took it, not because she needed the support but because she was afraid of losing her son.

A muscle bunched in his jaw. “It’s true, then.”

She swallowed dryly. “Yes.”

“My father wasn’t a soldier.”

“No.”

“He didn’t die a hero’s death.”

“No,” Sarah said, her voice soft and shaky.

“And,” Jake said, his mouth twisting, “it sure as hell wasn’t a sweet, romantic love story interrupted by war.”

“I was young. Painfully young. I’d been raised in a very strict home and—and I knew little about the world. I know this is difficult for you but you have to understand, Joaquim—”