Zoe Brennan, First Crush

Chapter Twenty-Five

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Cobblestones are quaint as hell, but I’d give my soul for a smooth, paved sidewalk right now. Instead, I’m dragging my little carry-on and Teddy’s huge suitcase up a steep alley in the outskirts of Montepulciano over a thousand little speed bumps.

“Mamma mia!” Teddy cries beneath the rest of his luggage. “Prego! Ragu! Newman’s Own—”

“Teddy,” I wheeze out. “Stop that. It’s obnoxious.”

“That’s a … ” Teddy says louder. The spry asshole isn’t even winded. “Spicy meat-a-ball!”

I groan. While Teddy’s no-nonsense energy kept me from fear-spiraling all day, I don’t know what I’ll find waiting for us at Nonna’s house. Dad, listless in a chair? The aunts, uncles, and cousins I barely know all in black and silently weeping? What if Nonna’s body is in there? Do Italians perform wakes? I’m ashamed of how little I know about my culture, and worse, how little I know my family.

“This the place?” Teddy asks as I stop in front of a house with red shutters. I stare at it for a long minute, trying to reconcile it against a memory of my Nonna’s house, but … there’s nothing there. I glance down at the instructions on my phone, but the notes I took read like abstract poetry.

“I, um. I—” I try to clear the feelings out of my throat, but the words warble in there, stuck.

“Hey, look at me.” Teddy grabs me by both shoulders, forcing my attention on him. “You’re freaking out, but remember—you’re not alone here, and our to-do list for tonight is very short: find your family’s house, pee, be there for your dad. Okay?”

I swallow and try to breathe. “Okay.”

Teddy nods curtly, then snatches my phone from my hand. “Now let me figure out where the hell we are, you’re absolutely dumb with grief.”

Teddy leads the way down the lane, and I follow gladly behind, dissociating into the sights of this small, medieval city. Its walls are the color of Chardonnay, but beneath the sunset sky, everything’s turned a coppery rosé. I drink it in, this place where generations of my father’s family lived, worked, loved, and died. It’s a strange feeling to be reunited with a place where your roots grow so deep, yet you know so little. Like the confusion you feel when a stranger calls your name, looking expectantly at you, asking with their eyes, do you remember me?

But you don’t. You really, really wish you did, but you don’t, and the embarrassed disappointment flows between you both.

Finally, Teddy stops in front of a low garden gate, the peach-colored stone house beyond hugged by ivy. An arched green door sits at its middle, half open.

Teddy gives me a bracing smile. “Okay, this is it, and even if it isn’t, I’m peeing here, anyway.” He pushes me forward. “You first, bambino.”

“Bambin- a .”

“Bambin- x .”

Fair enough. I take a deep breath and open the gate. Images of my father at his worst in the days after Mom’s death flash through my mind. When I found him passed out drunk on our kitchen floor, and I screamed because I thought he was dead. Standing in front of our bathroom mirror before the funeral, a long cut on his cheek from shaving bleeding freely into our sink. Lying in bed, clutching her pillow and crying so hard he threw up. Even worse, the silence that followed all that outward despair, that lingered for years. The interminable quiet of our home.

“Hello?” With an uncertain hand, I push the door open all the way.

This home, however, is not quiet.

“ Qualcuno ha visto Fredo? ” A woman in a black Britney Spears sweatshirt barrels down the staircase directly in front of the door. “Fredo?! Where is that little shit!”

“Lucia, relax !” comes a thoroughly unconcerned voice above the general din, speaking Italian, English, and even a bit of French. “He’ll turn up by suppertime.”

“He stole my cell phone again, so I will not relax!” Only then does Lucia, one of my many cousins, clock me standing there on the threshold. Her angry face transforms into a wide grin, and it’s shocking how much we look alike.

“ Dio mio! Zoe’s here, Zio Paolo!” Lucia envelops me in a big, perfumed hug, then thrusts me away almost as fast. “Have you seen little Fredo?”

I blink. “Ah, nope.”

“That little shit .” Lucia stomps past me, pausing only to eye Teddy and his bags. “Ooh, bello , I love your luggage!”

“Why, thank you!” Teddy says, hand pressed coyly to his chest. He leans in. “If I see Fredo, I’m getting your phone back. I got you, baby.”

Lucia nods, satisfied, an alliance formed between them quicker than you can say prego . Then she’s out the door and screaming for Fredo down the lane.

Uncle Paolo appears, tall and handsome as ever. “Zoe Nicoletta!” He kisses me on both cheeks. “I am so glad you are here.”

“Me too.” He smells like leather and the newest Hugo Boss cologne, the familiarity like solid ground. “Where’s Dad?”

Uncle Paolo pushes me back gently, eyes flickering over my face with a sad, tender smile. “He’s in the kitchen, where else? I’ll take you to him. But first tell me, who is your friend?” Paolo lifts an eyebrow as he takes in Teddy’s Nike tracksuit, matching sneakers, and suite of bags lining the walkway. “I thought you were for the ladies, Zoe?”

“ Ugh , please! I am her very dear friend who is for the gentlemen .” Teddy brushes off his shoulders as if to get rid of Uncle Paolo’s misplaced heterosexual assumptions. “I’m Teddy.”

“ Un altro omosessuale! ” Aunt Cecilia says as she bustles past, arms full of blankets. “It’s Club Europa in here!”

Uncle Paolo rolls his eyes and grins, then steps aside to let us in. “Welcome to Club Europa, eh?”

It takes a solid fifteen minutes for Uncle Paolo to escort us from the front door to the kitchen due to the nonstop parade of laughing relatives, questions as to my and Teddy’s relationship status, shocked proclamations of More homosexuals? Welcome! , and lots of hugs. The relief at the happy, bustling atmosphere inside my Nonna’s house is only skin-deep, though, because everywhere there is evidence of why we’re all here. The house is jammed full of people, but not my grandmother. Instead of Nonna, piles of flowers and bottles of her favorite amaretto sit in her armchair by the window. Suitcases and bags spill from the corners and line the hallway from all the family in from out of town. Somewhere, someone is crying.

I silently plead that it’s not Dad.

When I duck beneath the low arch of the doorframe into the kitchen, I spot my father’s shoulders hunched over a simmering pot on the stove. He’s not crying, though. A strange, humming sound is coming from his throat.

He’s … singing ?

“Dad?” I let my purse fall to the floor.

He drops the spoon in the sauce and whirls around, joy dancing in his bright eyes. His cheeks are fuller now, rosy from the kitchen heat, and his beard looks shinier, too. His hair is neatly trimmed and pushed back in classic silver-threaded waves, his pants sharply tailored, his button-down crisp and protected beneath one of Nonna’s old aprons. Evidence of Uncle Paolo’s cosmopolitan influence is clear as day. “Zoe Nicoletta!”

“Dad?” I repeat dumbly in the face of this gorgeous older man who shares the same eyes as my father, but not much else. He takes me into his arms and squeezes, rocking from foot to foot in a long embrace. One hand cradles the back of my head as he murmurs Zoe Nicoletta and my little Zoe over and over again, and then I’m the one crying because I’ve missed him so, so much.

“Oh, it is so good to see your beautiful face.” Dad releases me to hold my chin, turning my face this way and that to get a good, long look at me. “Being in love looks good on you, bella.”

“What?” I sputter out a tearful laugh. “What are you talking about?”

Then Dad shocks me even more by throwing his head back and laughing, too. “Zoe Nicoletta, surely you knew I would be checking up on you?” He waggles his eyebrows, which, I swear to god, I have never seen him do. “Still mad I hired Laine without asking?”

“Okay, that’s it. What’s going on here?” I gesture back and forth between us. This is Dad . He’s supposed to be sad . It rhymes, even! “I came here to be with you because you needed me, but you seem fine.”

“I knew you would come for me, Zoe Nicoletta, but more than anything, you needed to come for you .”

“What are you talking about?”

Just then, Uncle Paolo busts in, his arm wrapped around a disbelieving Teddy’s shoulders, promising him a glass of Montepulciano’s signature Brunello di Montalcino that’s worth staining your teeth for. Teddy looks intensely skeptical.

Paolo releases Teddy and slings his arm around Dad instead. “Doesn’t your father look so well here, Zoe Nicoletta? Back in his homeland, surrounded by family, in the kitchen where he belongs!” For the first time since I’ve arrived, Dad’s smile falters, and he gives Uncle Paolo a strange, loaded look before shaking off his arm and returning to the sauce.

“I hope you both are hungry,” Dad calls over his shoulder.

We eat and drink late into the night, crammed in across three rooms loaded with food, wine, and laughter. Any awkwardness I felt at not knowing my own family wears off after the second glass of Brunello, happily drifting in and out of the roar of conversation and hilarious family politics. After dinner, I lose Teddy to Uncle Paolo and some of the other cousins, who excitedly discuss the possibility of going to the real Club Europa later that night. I’m not exactly sure where Teddy and I are supposed to sleep until Aunt Cecilia announces she’s waking the butcher down the street who, for some reason, will help us solve this problem. When she shows up triumphantly brandishing a ring of old keys ten minutes later, I realize it’s because Teddy and I will be staying in the little apartment above the butcher shop that may or may not be a part-time meat locker.

I do not share this information with Teddy.

After the first wave of cousins leaves for their homes and hotels, then the second, I pull up my messages to text Laine. Up until now, everything I’ve sent has been by way of update, opting for nice, safe facts. Checked in. On the plane. Arrived. Now as I stare at the blinking cursor, the facts no longer feel quite as safe. I’m sorry for freaking out. I love you, too, and I’ve never felt so scared in my entire life. More than anything: I don’t want you to leave.

I close the messages app and sigh. Dad finds me on the couch between aunts listening to a heated debate over club football teams I can barely follow. He places his hand on my shoulder. “Zoe Nicoletta, come have a glass of wine with me, yes?”

I follow him into the back garden, lit overhead by the same string lights Dad likes at home. “Did you put these up?”

“Nonna loved sitting among her flowers, but the summer heat would get to her. I hung these up so we could enjoy the evenings out here after the heat of the day had passed.” He smiles ruefully. “She gave a lot of feedback.”

I smile, imagining Dad on the stepladder while Nonna instructed him from her chair. “She must’ve loved having you here.”

He nods, then takes a sip of his wine. “She did,” he says. “I’ve loved being here, too.” His eyes watch mine carefully, but I’m not sure why. I’m glad he doesn’t regret leaving home for the last seven months. All my fears of finding Dad broken by grief have been eradicated, and the relief is overwhelming.

I swirl the wine in my glass, remembering how Lucia and Teddy pounced on Fredo the moment the scrawny fourteen-year-old stepped into the house and fleeced him of the stolen phone. “We need to be better about visiting, Dad. Everyone’s great, and it’s so beautiful here.” Beyond the garden fence, the city’s ancient walls loom, the stone town like a jaunty cap upon this rolling mountain’s head.

“You should visit more, that is true.” Dad clears his throat. “But I won’t because, well … I’ve decided to stay.”

“ What? ”

Dad puts his glass down, then leans forward and puts his head in his hands. “I want to stay here, Zoe Nicoletta. Indefinitely. Forever, maybe.”

I laugh, though it’s anything but amused. “I don’t understand , Dad. You’ve said nothing about this before now, you got Uncle Paolo to lure me out here saying you needed me , so I drop everything to come out here and save you only to find you’re abso-fucking-lutely fine and having the time of your life, and now you want to leave home forever?”

“I want to be with my family, Zoe, I—”

“ I’m your family, Dad!” I jab my heart, hard, with my thumb. “Me! Your daughter!”

Dad sighs and runs his fingers through his waves. “I understand why you’re upset. This is all coming as a big shock to you, and it will take some time to get used to the idea.” He says this with zero irony , even though it’s almost verbatim what he said when he told me he was going to Italy in the first place.

“God, Dad, could you be any worse at communicating?!” I clench my jaw to keep from crying. I’m so goddamn tired of crying . “Maybe I wouldn’t be so shocked if you’d actually talk to me.” The tears come anyway.

“I’m sorry, Zoe Nicoletta. I’ve handled this all wrong.” Dad rubs his hand over the day’s stubble, morose for the first time since I arrived. Of course, I caused it. Or his crushing sense of fatherly duty to me, anyway.

“Why, Dad? Tell me why you want to stay.” I sniff, wiping my eyes on the back of my sleeve. “Really fucking explain yourself for once.”

Dad breathes in deeply through his nose. “I will— try , Zoe Nicoletta. It doesn’t come easy to me, but you deserve the best I can give.” He clasps his hands together, the string lights flickering across his thoughtful face.

“Moving back here, to a place where I existed before your mother, it’s woken up a part of me that I’d long forgotten, Zoe. I feel … lighter here. More myself than I have in decades.” He pauses, really searching for a way to make me understand without making me feel bad at the same time.

“ I make you sad, don’t I?” There it is, the question that’s loomed over me ever since Mom died and Dad stopped looking at me. I’ve never spoken it aloud, afraid it would give the words truth. But I’m too tired right now for anything but the truth—I just want to know. “I remind you of Mom.”

“No!” Dad sits up straight with a flash. “Zoe Nicoletta, you are my dearest thought. You are the sweetness that runs through my life like a river. Yes, I see bits of your mother in you—the way you laugh when something surprises you, how you always look for the moon. But they don’t make me sad. I cherish these glimpses of my beloved when they appear. Mostly, I see you , Zoe Nicoletta. My sweet, brilliant, lonely Zoe.” He touches my cheek gently. “But that last part’s changing now, isn’t it?”

He brushes my tears away, not waiting for me to answer. “Great loves change us. One minute, you are yourself, growing straight up into the sky. But then, someone comes along that challenges the sun for your attention. You grow toward them, entwining your life with theirs, sharing the same water, soil, air, and light. You hold them up as best you can, and they do the same for you. Until one of you no longer can stand.” He smiles then, though his eyes fill with tears. “And the other one has to let go. I’ve never been good at letting go, my Zoe, and I’m afraid I’ve never taught you how to, either.”

I open my mouth to respond, but a small sob comes out instead. Dad gathers me in his arms and holds me close. “It can be scary, letting yourself need someone, especially when you’ve lost someone you needed so much before. We both know loss, Zoe Nicoletta, but where we’ve gone wrong is fearing it. The truth is, when I first came out here, I was not okay. Seeing Nonna so weak terrified me, and the guilt of all the years spent not visiting her in healthier days ate me alive. I was so afraid of losing her that I was wasting the time we had left.”

Dad holds me back far enough so he can look at me, his eyes shining and tender. “It was Nonna who set me straight, Zoe Nicoletta. Even in her illness, she could see I was committing the same sins I did when your mother got sick. Wasting her time by counting the minutes we had left together, mourning each one as it slipped from my fingers instead of using that time to love her. What a miserly way to live.” Dad shakes his head, his lips pressed in a grim line. “If I could go back, Zoe Nicoletta, I’d do things so differently with your mother. I’d be there for her, really be there , instead of mourning her before she even passed. And I’d be there for you, too. I’d show you that we are strong enough for great love, even when it entails great loss.” His smile is forlorn, laden with the relieved exhaustion that follows when you’re finally allowed to set down a heavy burden. “I am so sorry I wasn’t there for you. I am even sorrier that I taught you to fear love, instead of cherishing it. My only consolation is that you’ve found love, anyway, and together, you and Laine can run Bluebell and keep your dreams alive, too.”

I love my father, I always have. Even at his lowest and most broken, I never begrudged him the pain he felt, or how it took him so far away from me. It’d be like blaming a tree for being struck by lightning, then judging it for its charred, ruined trunk. Sure, it was once a beautiful tree that gave you shade and fruit, but bad shit happens, and this stump of a father is all that remains.

I never expected him to grow back. I never thought he could.

But he did. He has. He is .

And it’s going to change everything.

Well, that’s the problem with making plans around other people, isn’t it? Laine’s words come back to me, a reminder and admonition all at once.

Laine wants to run her own vineyard, make her own wines, be her own vintner. Something she’s wanted forever . All that’s holding her back from her dreams is her promise to stay at Bluebell until Dad comes home, and now, he never is. Would she accept Bluebell Vineyards in place of the fresh start in Oregon? Can I let her change my mother’s vineyard enough to make it hers, too? It’s a huge request, asking her to change her plans for me to stay on and live season to season at my struggling little vineyard. Dad did that for Mom and look what it got him—a decades-long depression and an identity crisis he’s only just now confronting. I can’t expect Laine to hang up her dreams and stay in Blue Ridge forever any more than I can expect Dad to.

But can I hope ? I take a long pull of my dwindling wine, letting the plummy burn clarify against my tongue, considering what that would really look like. Feel like. Laine, taking over for Dad permanently.

“Won’t you miss the vineyard?”

“The vineyard, yes. You, more than anything. But making wine? No.” Dad laughs softly. “That was more of my refusing to let go, I’m afraid. Your mother begged me to sell Bluebell before she died.”

I choke on my actual breath. “She what ?”

Dad nods, swirling his wine. “She didn’t want us to stay at the vineyard out of grief. She wanted us to make new lives for ourselves, follow new dreams. Maybe even here, in Italy.” He closes his eyes and slowly shakes his head. “She knew exactly what would happen if we stayed at Bluebell, and I’m so sorry, Zoe Nicoletta, because I chose that life of grief for us, anyway.”

I sit back, stunned. Mom wanted to sell Bluebell Vineyards? Just like that, the cornerstone of my whole reality, the basis of every big decision I’ve ever made, sifts through my fingers like sand. This whole time, I’ve been guarding her vineyard with my life, bartering days, weeks, months, and years to keep her dreams safe from the passage of her own time. But I see all of that for what it was now.

My choice.

It was always just my choice.

“At the very least, I should’ve hired another vintner years ago, someone with real passion for the work. I simply could not bear another person taking your mother’s place, though.” Dad reaches over and pats my hand. “The beauty of that work falling to the woman you love is not lost on me. Life is funny that way, bella.”

How his words squeeze my heart.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” I whisper, and this time, I take him into my arms and hug him tight.