Before Anna could answer, Vanessa stepped between them. “Luca, please. They could be saying anything. She’s giving him time to make up a story.”
Luca looked at his fiancée for a long moment. “Move,” he said.
She stepped aside.
Anna had never stood in the middle of that dining room for so long. She was used to the edges — replacing towels, collecting plates, vanishing before she was noticed. Now the boss of the house was watching her hands.
“Where did you learn that?” Luca asked.
“My older brother is Deaf. We grew up signing.”
Her brother repaired heating systems. He owned his tools, paid his mortgage, and could diagnose a furnace problem that three other men had missed. Still, people sometimes talked about him while he stood right beside them, as if he weren’t there. Anna had seen that exact look on Daniel’s face before.
“Ask him again,” Luca said.
Anna signed slowly this time. Tell me what you saw.