Chapter 16 When Life Gives You Grapes, You Make Wine
When Life Gives You Grapes, You Make Wine
Aria Amora
The morning of the harvesting celebration, it felt like a romantic movie score about Italy and its grapes was setting the tone to the day, if the music my husband had playing was any indication.
The music was, in fact, a romantic score Maestro, Brando and Scarlett’s youngest son, had written for us.
The sun was not far off, that time when the air is starting to become softer as the glow chases away the darkness.
I knew that, once it took over the sky, it was going to clear most of the fog, and our entire room would be filled with golden light.
The same light that shined through the amber grape leaves, highlighting their veins, and touched deep purple figs, plumping them up with a sweetness only the sun could accomplish.
Maybe because of the theme of the celebration—vintage roots—and all the talk about my great-aunt Avelina, the era she had been a young woman in, I felt as if the world had taken on a different hue, maybe sepia, and I was waking up in a different time.
A simpler time, but no less dangerous.
I pushed all thoughts of danger aside, focusing on what the land had offered us, and my husband’s hard work to bring its bounty from grapes to wine.
We stared at each other through our reflections in the mirror, maybe both of us imagining the same thing—another time, another place.
He wore a suit from a different time, one his grandfather owned.
It had suspenders, a cap, and my favorite accessory of all: my husband’s rough hands, and the wedding band he wore on his left ring finger.
I’d done my hair in thick waves, sweeping one side up, securing it with the pin Rocco had given me. It was a casting of a bunch of grapes and their leaves. I went light and soft on the makeup, allowing the sun to give me a natural gold warmth to add to the pinks and purples.
The dress I wore…my husband ran his hands down it, caressing every curve.
He’d surprised me by having another version of my great-aunt’s dress custom made for me.
This one was longer, had buttons down the center, but was the same color with the same flower design.
The perfume he designed for me to wear reminded me of bursting figs in the autumn sun.
It was warm with earthy undertones, which perfectly complimented the woodsy scent he wore.
After he looked over our bathroom counter, filled with all the things I used to get ready, he took a deep breath in and sighed it out.
He set his nose against my neck, and without him having to, I tilted some to give him easier access.
He breathed me in. “A woman,” he whispered in Italian.
“A woman who keeps me fulfilled and starving at the same time. Mine.”
My eyes closed at the intensity in his voice, the passion, and if it wasn’t for his hands keeping me on my feet, I would’ve been too weak to stand.
I’d taken away a lot of recipes from the time I’d spent in the kitchen with all the women, including Scarlett’s neighbor in Tuscany, Apollonia, whose daughter was married to Violet and Mitch’s son, but I also took away what seemed like a universal truth among the women who were married to a Fausti—these men had the power to bring a woman to her knees with a look.
A touch? Forget about it. The war was already lost.
In a move so smooth, it barely felt like he’d done it, he lifted me off my feet and carried me back into our bedroom from our ensuite bathroom.
He set me down on the bed, and after he slipped my flats on my feet, he slid his feet into a pair of boots.
He took my hand and led me downstairs. After breakfast, he took my hand again and led me outside.
I inhaled a breath of fresh air and slowly released it, and it seemed like clouds purled from my mouth. The sun was hiding behind the hills, only lending its glow to the fog moving across the valleys and peaks, and the entire world seemed infused with its glow.
We were surrounded by iridescent air.
From my viewpoint, miles of rolling hills unfurled around me, rows and rows of pruned grape plants relaxing until it was time to work on next year’s harvest. A breeze gently stirred the air around us, and the earthy smell of plants, wood, and the bitter scent of the oncoming cold gave me a hug.
Rocco wrapped his arms around me, and before he could take his shirt off and offer it to me, I stopped him.
“I’m good, my love. Grazie.” Keeping his hand, I lifted on my toes and placed a soft kiss on his cheek.
He shook his head and pointed to his mouth.
“Even better,” I whispered as I touched his mouth with mine. It was a soft kiss that left tingles behind, but it went deep, as deep as a kiss could go.
His eyes were closed when I pulled away, and for a moment, all he did was breathe. Then his sea-green eyes opened, and my breath caught at the way the light was swimming in them. This time, I was dazed when he brought my hand to his mouth, placing a warm kiss on each of my knuckles.
And then we took a walk in the clouds.
The fog lay at our feet, and as we cut through it, it almost seemed to be curious. It would move away but continue to hover.
“I can’t believe how…I’m not even sure ‘beautiful’ is the right word for what I’m seeing.
It doesn’t look real, Rocco. It reminds me of a backdrop in Hollywood.
I’ve never been, but Thandie went to San Francisco a couple of years ago.
She brought me postcards and showed me pictures. She said none of it seemed real.”
“I prefer Napa,” he said. “I have been there quite a few times.”
“Tell me about it.”
He lifted my hand and kissed it, then pulled out two pairs of sunglasses from his pocket. Both glasses were in vintage style—his smaller and more masculine. The pair he set over my eyes had a gold design on the side, and all I could think was…high style.
“I will take you there instead.”
“That’s…” I’d never known what it felt like to travel on a whim, but I had a feeling I was going to get accustomed to it. No place was too far or too expensive. “I can’t wait.”
He grinned at me and opened the door to one of the barrel rooms where his private stock was, then he motioned for me to go in ahead of him.
The scent of wooden barrels permeated the cool air. It was a bit dark, so Rocco left the door ajar to let light in. He led me to a private room and held out what seemed like a hand-carved, ornate chair for me. The table could sit probably fifty, and its details matched the carving on the chairs.
Rocco disappeared into a room and came right back out, handing me an empty wine bottle. My eyes read over the label. A calligraphy pen with a beautiful purple quill caught my eye first, then the name of the Barbera wine: Aria Amora Bella.
My eyes rose to meet my husband’s.
He touched the spot over his heart. “That one is for me. For me to consume only.”
“You named a wine after me?” I whispered.
“If the world was mine to name, I would name it after you.”
“Rocco…”
He handed me another bottle. This one was older, with cobwebs on it.
The label was still in place, but cracks throughout showed visible time and wear.
The calligraphy pen and quill on the old bottle were the same as the one Rocco had designed for me, but the name was different.
The name on the older bottle was missing my middle name.
He tapped the glass. “This is why I wanted this place to begin with. This Barbera is my favorite, and I sampled this wine in this room before I ever laid eyes on you. After, I could not get this place out of my mind. Thoughts of it haunted me. The drifting fog, or the clouds as you call them, the way the grapes shine in the new morning light, how peaceful my soul feels here at night after a day of connecting with my roots…my life has always been leading me to you, Amora. Signs. Signs have always been in my path.”
“For me too.” The weight of the moment and what it meant, what I’d known from the moment I’d seen him in the window of the castello on the island I shared a name with…
stole my breath. I knew life had been leading me to him all along, but to hold the proof in my hand was something else entirely.
It brought my life into focus like never before.
He set a hand on my shoulder, and automatically, even if my mouth couldn’t form the right words, my hand went to his. “For my brother and his wife,” he said, “it has always been pears that led to the beginning of their love.”
“And for us,” I whispered, using my finger to wipe some of the dirt off the dark glass bottle, “it’s grapes. Grapes and towers.”
“For us.” He breathed out. “It is il uva and torri.”
“Rocco?” I whispered, and he squeezed my hand in response. “Who named this wine?”
He took a knee in front of me, and when my eyes connected with his, he cleared his throat. “Your great-aunt and my great-uncle.”
“Avelina and Ricco.”
He nodded. “Avelina and Ricco.” What he did to her name made it sound so beautiful, it became a song. Ave-leeena.
I set the vintage bottle of wine on the table carefully and slowly turned to face my husband. He was still down on one knee. “I keep thinking, believing—” I clasped the cross around my neck “—that our love story will end differently. If I can change it for her, I can change it for us.”
“Amora,” he whispered, “although we seem to be continuing a war they started, we are not Avelina and Ricco. We are Aria and Rocco.”
“I know.” I rubbed my finger against the warmth of the gold. The room felt like it was suddenly turning cold. “But I can’t help but feel that our stories are intersecting because of what happened back then. The Fausti family doesn’t forget.”
“No,” he agreed. “We do not.”
“Even when the memory doesn’t belong to those who can’t remember, since they were not present at the time.”
“Even though,” he agreed again. “However, I will not allow any man to step over a line that will kill my heart.”
“It’s worrying me.”