Chapter 21
NONNO
EVAN
Idrive to Napa on a Saturday morning, two days after I ended things with Arabella. I had already told Nonno I’ll be there, even before the summons that I knew would inevitably come.
I arrive early, before lunch, when everyone with their pointer fingers sharp and directed toward me gets there.
I find him in the sunroom. He’s listening to Puccini.
The record player hums softly— Nonno is old school—the needle crackling before the orchestra swells.
La Bohème.
Nonno has always favored Puccini because he understood longing better than most composers ever could.
My grandfather introduced me to opera, dragged me to La Scala when I was twelve, dressed me in a suit that pinched, bored me out of my skull, counting the minutes until intermission.
I remember thinking it was overwrought and way too long.
Nonno patted my shoulder and told me I’d understand one day.
Then, I did not appreciate Turandot, Puccini’s unfinished opera, which was later completed by Franco Alfano and premiered on 25 April 1926, almost a year and a half after the great composer’s death.
Somewhere between medical school and growing up, between ambition and loss, opera stopped sounding excessive and started sounding honest.
The restraint. The ache. The way emotion is held just long enough before it breaks free. Now, when Puccini plays, I hear what Nonno meant all along.
What I didn’t do—what I can’t stop thinking about—is that I never took Navya to the opera.
She’s never been, she told me.
I want to see her face when the curtain rises, want to watch her discover something new, want to sit beside her in the dark and feel her reaction ripple through me.
I could’ve had it, but I kept her out of the parts of my life that mattered most.
The music swells, and regret settles heavily in my chest.
Nonno was right when he said that opera makes sense once you’ve loved and lost.
“Evan,” Nonno murmurs, his eyes closed.
I sit next to him, wait.
“You’ve kicked up quite a shitstorm, son.” He opens his eyes and looks at me. “She says you’re cheating on her.”
I raise both eyebrows. “And what do you think?”
Nonno shrugs. “Would never happen.”
Well, that’s a relief.
“But,” Nonno continues, “there is a woman.”
I don’t pretend not to understand. “Yes.”
He waits. That’s his gift—silence that demands morality.
“She’s a nurse,” I say. “At the hospital.”
Nonno nods thoughtfully, like that detail tells him very little about what actually matters. “And?”
“And I love her.” The words are dangerous and freeing all at once. “I didn’t realize it until I lost her.”
The record plays on. Mimi sings.
Love, already doomed.
Nonno exhales slowly. “And Arabella?”
“I was honest with her…took some time, but I finally got there.”
He studies my face for a long moment, then reaches for the arm of his chair as if he needs something to hold on to. Age has thinned him, but his presence still fills the space around him.
“You know what your parents will say,” he warns.
“I do.”
“And you know what the family will say.”
“Yes.”
“And you did it anyway.”
I meet his gaze. “Because I’m done choosing the easy path.”
That earns me a small smile. It’s not exactly approval…maybe recognition?
“Your grandmother,” he tells me quietly as he gazes at his vineyards past the polished glass walls of the sunroom, “was the woman my family wanted me to marry, but I had doubts.”
It’s a story he’s told before, several times.
“She was practical when I was reckless. Kind, when I was proud. She stayed when things were difficult.” His voice softens. “We built everything you see together. When there was nothing.”
“I know, Nonno.”
“She would have hated Arabella’s ring,” he adds dryly.
A startled laugh escapes me. “She would.”
Nonno’s lips curve. “Maybe when she refused the ring was when we both should’ve known she wasn’t the one for you.”
“Maybe,” I agree.
He grows serious again. “Do not confuse duty with fear, Evan. They feel similar, but they rot you in different ways.”
“I was afraid,” I admit. “Of disappointing you.”
His hand covers mine. “You disappoint me only when you lie to yourself.”
The music reaches a crest, then fades into silence as the record ends.
Nonno opens his eyes fully now. “Bring her to lunch.”
I blink. “What?”
“I want to see the woman who made my grandson brave.”
I clear my throat. “Nonno, she’s not with me. I messed it up.”
“Tell me,” he orders.
So, I do.
He slaps my hand when I tell him how she overheard me. “You did not behave like a gentleman then.”
Emotion thickens my throat. “She may never forgive me.”
“Then you will live with that,” he says gently. “But at least you will live with dignity and truth.”
Footsteps echo down the hall—voices approaching. The calm before the storm.
Nonno squeezes my hand once more. “Now…we must face them.”
“We?”
Nonno smiles evenly. “Si. This is on both of us.”