Chapter 2 - The Silence That Broke the Room
“TAKE THAT UGLY THING OUT OF YOUR EAR! YOU'RE RUINING MY ENGAGEMENT DINNER!” THE MAFIA BOSS'S FIANCÉE RIPPED THE HEARING AID FROM HIS 24-YEAR-OLD MAID'S EAR AND DROPPED IT INTO A GLASS OF CHAMPAGNE—THEN LAUGHED WHEN THE FRIGHTENED GIRL COULDN'T UNDERSTAND HER NEXT ORDER. BUT WHEN HIS EIGHT-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER BEGAN DESPERATELY USING SIGN LANGUAGE ACROSS THE BANQUET TABLE, THE MAFIA BOSS REALIZED EXACTLY WHAT HIS FUTURE WIFE HAD DONE.
The tiny hearing aid sank slowly through the golden champagne.
Twenty-eight guests watched as bubbles gathered around the little silver device at the bottom of the crystal glass.
“Now perhaps you'll learn to pay attention.”
Victoria Ashford smiled, smoothing the front of her elegant red satin gown.
Across from her, twenty-four-year-old housemaid Lily Morgan stood motionless, one hand pressed against her right ear.
Her face had gone white.
“Please, Miss Ashford,” Lily whispered. “I need that.”
Victoria raised an eyebrow.
“Speak properly, girl. I can't understand your mumbling.”
Lily's lips trembled.
“That hearing aid cost me three thousand dollars.”
Victoria gave a short, cruel laugh.
“Then perhaps you should have spent the money learning some manners.”
A few guests exchanged uncomfortable glances.
Nobody intervened.
Lily had worked at the Blackwood mansion for fourteen months. She was almost completely deaf in her left ear, and the small device in her right ear allowed her to hear conversations, answer questions, and perform her duties.
She had saved for nearly two years to afford it.
Tonight, all she'd done was fail to hear Victoria calling from the opposite end of the table.
Three times.
The first time, Victoria had snapped her fingers.
The second time, she'd struck her champagne glass with a silver spoon.
The third time, she'd grabbed Lily by the arm.
“Are you deliberately ignoring me?”
“No, ma'am. I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you from—”
“Don't lie to me.”
Then Victoria noticed the hearing aid.
“What on earth is that hideous thing?”
Before Lily could explain, Victoria reached up and pulled it from her ear.
Lily cried out.
It wasn't loud.
Just a small, frightened sound as she instinctively covered the sore place where the device had been.
And now it lay at the bottom of Victoria's champagne glass.
“Please,” Lily said again, her eyes filling with tears. “It's the only way I can hear properly.”
Victoria leaned closer.
“Then I suggest you learn to read lips.”
She turned to the guests.
“Honestly, I don't know why Nathan hires people who can't even follow simple instructions.”
At the head of the magnificent dining table, eight-year-old Olivia Blackwood slowly pushed back her chair.
She had watched everything.
Her little hands were shaking.
“Victoria,” she said, “give it back.”
Victoria barely glanced at her.
“Sit down, Olivia. Adults are speaking.”
But Olivia didn't sit.
Instead, she hurried toward Lily and gently touched the young maid's sleeve.
Lily turned.
The little girl raised both hands and began signing.
ARE YOU OKAY?
Lily blinked back tears.
Then she signed a shaky reply.
I'M OKAY, SWEETHEART.
But Olivia could see she wasn't.
Every evening for the past year, Lily had taught Olivia a few new signs.
They practiced while brushing her hair, folding laundry, and getting ready for bed.
Olivia loved signing goodnight across the room after the lights were turned off.
Now the little girl stood in front of Lily, trying desperately to make herself understood.
DON'T CRY.
Lily managed a small smile.
Victoria watched them with open disgust.
“Oh, for heaven's sake. Stop waving your hands around like that!”
She caught Olivia's wrists.
“It's embarrassing.”
The little girl pulled away.
“I'm talking to Lily!”
“Then use your mouth like a normal child!”
Lily saw Victoria's angry expression but couldn't make out the words.
She instinctively stepped between the woman and Olivia.
That only made Victoria angrier.
“Don't you dare stand between me and my future stepdaughter!”
She shoved Lily's shoulder.
The young maid stumbled against the dining table.
A silver serving spoon clattered onto the marble floor.
And that was when Nathan Blackwood rose from his chair.
The thirty-six-year-old Mafia Boss had remained silent through the confrontation, his dark eyes following every movement of his fiancée.
His black tailored suit concealed the tattoos running down his arms, but the ink across his right hand was visible as he set his glass on the table.
“Victoria.”
One word.
She turned immediately.
“Darling, thank goodness. Your maid has been terribly disrespectful, and now she's teaching Olivia these ridiculous hand gestures.”
Nathan didn't look at her.
He walked toward Lily.
The young woman immediately lowered her head.
“I'm sorry, Mr. Blackwood. I didn't mean to interrupt your dinner.”
Nathan noticed she was watching his mouth carefully.
He stepped directly into her line of sight.
“Lily. Are you hurt?”
She understood enough to shake her head.
Then Olivia reached up and tugged at her father's sleeve.
“Daddy, she can't hear you very well.”
Nathan crouched beside his daughter.
“I know, sweetheart.”
Olivia pointed toward the champagne glass.
“Victoria put Lily's hearing thing in there.”
Nathan slowly turned his head.
He saw the tiny device resting among the bubbles.
Then he saw Lily's trembling hands.
“Victoria,” he said quietly, “take it out.”
His fiancée laughed nervously.
“Nathan, surely you're not going to make a scene over a little electronic gadget?”
“Take it out.”
The room was completely still.
Victoria lifted the glass reluctantly and tipped its contents into an empty silver bowl.
The hearing aid fell out with a faint metallic click.
Lily made a small, devastated sound.
She knew water could destroy its delicate electronics.
Her next paycheck wouldn't cover even a fraction of the cost of replacing it.
Nathan picked up the device and carefully placed it on a clean napkin.
He turned toward Lily, making sure she could see his face.
“I'm sorry.”
Lily shook her head quickly.
“No, sir. Please. You didn't do anything.”
Nathan's expression tightened.
Then Olivia stepped closer.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Victoria said Lily shouldn't work here because her ears are broken.”
Lily looked away.
Olivia continued, her voice beginning to crack.
“But Lily told me once that being different doesn't mean being less important.”
Nathan stared at his daughter.
“She told you that?”
Olivia nodded.
“When the boys at school laughed because I couldn't say my R's right, Lily helped me practice every night.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“And when I got them right, she was happier than I was.”
Lily covered her face.
Nathan gently pulled his daughter closer.
Victoria gave an impatient sigh.
“This is getting ridiculous. She's a maid, Nathan. You cannot possibly expect me to rearrange my entire household around one employee's disability.”
Nathan looked at her.
“You think this is about rearranging the household?”
Victoria crossed her arms.
“I think you're allowing a servant to manipulate your daughter.”
Olivia suddenly stepped forward.
“No, Daddy!”
Everyone turned.
The little girl's voice was shaking.
“Lily wasn't even mad when Victoria took it!”
A tear slipped down her cheek.
“She just kept saying please.”
Olivia looked toward Lily, then slowly raised both hands.
I'M SORRY.
Lily knelt to the child's height.
YOU DID NOTHING WRONG.
Olivia began crying.
Then she signed one more sentence.
I LOVE YOU.
Lily's expression crumpled.
She pulled the little girl into her arms.
For several seconds, the only sound in the enormous dining room was Olivia's quiet sobbing.
Nathan watched them.
Then he looked at Victoria.
The woman who had been smiling confidently moments earlier was now gripping the back of her chair.
“Nathan,” she whispered, “don't tell me you're going to choose a maid over your own fiancée.”
He didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he moved beside Lily and gently helped her stand.
Then he faced Victoria.
“Do you know what my daughter just said to her?”
Victoria looked confused.
Nathan's voice remained perfectly calm.
“She told Lily she loved her.”
He paused.
“And Lily told my daughter she had done nothing wrong.”
Victoria swallowed.
“What's your point?”
Nathan looked down at the ruined hearing aid resting on the napkin.
“My point is that the woman you're calling defective has spent the last year teaching my daughter kindness, patience, and compassion.”
He lifted his eyes.
“And the woman I was planning to marry just spent five minutes teaching her how to humiliate someone who couldn't defend herself.”
Victoria's face drained of color.
Then Nathan pulled out the chair beside him and motioned for Lily to sit while someone called a doctor to examine her injured ear.
But Olivia wasn't finished.
She looked up at her father, tears still clinging to her eyelashes.
“Daddy, can I ask you something?”
“Anything, sweetheart.”
The little girl's voice trembled.
“If Victoria breaks Lily's hearing thing again after you're married… who will help Lily when you're not home?”
Nathan went completely still.
He looked at his daughter.
Then at the frightened young woman who had been trying so hard not to cry.
Finally, he turned toward his fiancée.
May you like
“Victoria, my daughter just asked a question that I think every person at this table deserves to hear you answer.”
And for the first time that evening, the woman who had laughed at another person's disability couldn't find a single word to say.
