Chapter 32 Alessia
ALESSIA
I don’t know why I asked Nico to join me when I go to see Matteo, I only know that going alone is untenable.
I could ask Lucia.
Or even Alba, she’d fly back from wherever she is.
Toni would come over as well.
But I don’t want them. I want Nico. That, in itself, is a confession.
He comes on Saturday morning by helicopter, the sky still pale and undecided, mist clinging to the low places between hills.
He drives my car to Matteo’s.
I don’t argue.
I don’t have the wherewithal to pay attention to the road.
I haven’t called Matteo yet.
I called his housekeeper the moment I learned he was ill, and I’ve called every day since to check on him. I told her I would come.
Even though I am angry with Matteo, that isn’t why it has taken me this long to show up. It’s because I don’t know how to do this—how to walk into the ending of a man who helped shape me.
It reminds me too much of losing my mother. And even though many, many years have passed, the grief feels new again because of Matteo.
Maybe that’s why I reached out to Nico.
In the months since our business arrangement of a marriage became something real, he’s been my bulwark when things have been hard.
I don’t question how quickly he became that for me, even though I’ve always dealt with problems alone.
Maybe I did everything by myself because there was no one to lean on. Nico proved that he would be there.
Yes, he failed me. But not at everything.
That distinction matters more than my pride wants to admit.
I worry that trusting him now makes me weak, even foolish—especially after he betrayed my trust. And yet the relief of having him beside me now as I go to see my mentor is so complete, so instinctive, that it doesn’t feel like weakness at all.
It feels inevitable.
Nico doesn’t fill the silence as he drives. He doesn’t reach for my hand, but when I lean into him—which I do once, briefly—my fingers brushing his sleeve like a test of gravity, he holds me reverently, without hesitation.
“I can’t,” I admit quietly as Castagneto Carducci, where Matteo lives, comes into view, stone buildings stacked so close together they seem to hold one another upright. “I can’t face this by myself.”
“You don’t have to face anything alone ever again if you don’t want to.”
There he is!
My man giving me agency, telling me that he’ll be there no matter what. He’s not saying, we’ll fix this or we’ll talk, just that he’s here for me whenever and however I need him.
“His housekeeper told me he doesn’t want to be in a hospital. He wants to die at home,” I say, staring out the window without really seeing anything.
Nico passes another car on the motorway as he takes the exit to Matteo’s town. “The cancer advanced rapidly in the past month.”
I swallow. “I should have checked on him sooner. I should have checked on him—period.”
“You were busy with harvest, Alessia.”
“He was sick and I didn’t know.” I turn to his profile. “You didn’t tell me.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, and I know he means it.
He did what Matteo asked of him, and I don’t know how to honor that without resenting him for keeping me in the dark.
We fall silent after that again as Nico navigates the streets that seem too narrow for a car and yet, somehow, a bus manages to rumble past, horn sounding a gentle warning rather than a threat.
When we reach Matteo’s home, the driveway is tight and Nico has to ease the car as close to the wall as possible, tires kissing the curb.
When we step out, the stone is cool against my shoulder as I steady myself.
At the ivy-clad doorway, his nurse greets us. Her gaze flicks to Nico, then back to me.
“Signor Alarico, it’s nice of you to come see Matteo again,” she greets.
Ah. So Nico has been here before. Of course he has, a part of me thinks bitterly—he knew Matteo was ill before I did. I brush the thought away.
No. I’m not going to let that poison me any longer.
A man is dying, and there’s no room for triviality.
I hand over the thermos I brought for Matteo. “It’s his favorite soup.”
The nurse smiles. “Farinata di cavolo nero?”
“Yes,” I say, puzzled that she knows Matteo loves the old-fashioned Tuscan kale soup.
“He talked about how much he loves your cooking.”
My heart clenches. My mother used to make black cabbage farinata—a rustic soup, thick and creamy, built from black cabbage, beans, and polenta. It’s not fancy. In fact, it’s traditional cucina povera—peasant cooking—humble and elemental, the kind of food born from necessity rather than indulgence.
Maybe that’s why Matteo and I both love it so much—why my mother did, too.
Her absence rises sharply inside me now, just as I stand on the brink of losing yet another parental figure.
Grief layers upon grief, old and new folding together, and for a moment it feels as though the past and the present have conspired to hollow me out completely.
Nico and I walk into the living room. It’s still the way Isabella—Matteo’s wife—kept it.
They never had children, and in some ways, I was their child.
But I was always closer to Matteo than I was to Isabella.
When she died, I wrapped myself around him because that loss was massive for him. We grieved together.
Alba and Toni were there, too—more for me than for Matteo. He is a friend of our father’s, yes, and an important man in the company—but I was the daughter of his heart.
And yet, he didn’t tell me he was dying.
In some ways, I understand why he kept it from me. He didn’t want me to hurt—which is foolish, really, because how could he hide something so final?
I stop in front of Matteo’s bedroom. The nurse tells me he’s awake. He’s just had lunch.
I turn and look at Nico.
“I’ll wait here,” he assures me and then gently adds, “Unless you want me with you.”
I hesitate. The truth rises before I can stop it. “I want you with me.”
He nods. There’s no triumph in his expression, no relief—only the quiet acceptance that I want him beside me, holding my hand as I go to see the man who, in more ways than Duca Alighieri ever has been, is my true father.
Inside, the afternoon light spills across Matteo’s pillow, gilding the deepened lines of his face. He’s thinner than I remember, his breath shallow but steady.
Oh God! He’s really ill. He’s going to leave me, too.
When he sees me, his eyes brighten.
“Ah! There you are.” He smiles with satisfaction. “And you brought the tall one,” he adds, eyes flicking to Nico, who nods politely.
My husband stays near the door, hands loose at his sides—present but unobtrusive. He’s here for me, not Matteo; he’s making that clear, and somehow that’s cleansing.
I sit beside Matteo on his bed. “So, what’s this I hear about you not feeling well?” I manage to sound light when all I want to do is burst into tears.
“Ah at my age, you know how it is.” He holds his hand out, and I place mine in his. “I have missed you, bambina mia.”
He used to call me that when I was little. It’s been a long time since he’s addressed me that way.
“I’m angry with you,” I say, still keeping it casual.
“I know.” He squeezes my hand, the pressure barely there.
He doesn’t have much strength left.
The cancer spread quickly, and by the time they found it—his housekeeper told me—it was already too late. There was nothing to be done.
“But I’m here now,” I tell him, letting the hurt go because it’s pointless. Matteo is alive now, and I want to make the most of the time I have with him.
“Good,” he murmurs, his eyes closing.
He falls asleep. I sit beside him for a while, keeping watch.
The nurse comes by quietly and tells me he’s drifting in and out; that this is just how it is now. He’s on heavy painkillers—palliative care—meant to keep him as comfortable as possible as the body begins its slow letting go.
I step out of his bedroom, closing the door softly behind me.
The latch barely clicks into place before my legs give way.
Nico catches me before I hit the floor, but the force of it takes us both down.
He holds me on the cool tile as sobs tear out of me—harsh, uncontrollable anguish finally finding its voice. My chest aches, my breath stutters, my hands clutch uselessly at his shirt as if I might fall apart without something solid to hold on to.
“Oh God…Nico. Oh God,” I sob, the words breaking into pieces I can barely shape.
“I know, cara. I know.”
He settles fully onto the floor and draws me onto his lap, one arm firm around my back, the other cradling my head. He rocks me slightly, comforts me with the steady rise and fall of his breath.
I bury my face against his chest, the familiar scent of him—clean linen, faint soap, his distinct cologne, and him—cuts through the sterile hush of the house.
My tears soak into his shirt.
He lets me break.
Somewhere between breaths and cries, I realize that even though I’m annoyed with Nico and hurt by him, I reached out to him because in this moment—when the world is thinning, when someone I love is slipping away—he is who I need beside me.
Nico presses his cheek to the crown of my head, his grip tight. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t make demands—he simply bears the weight of my sorrow with me.
The part of me that isn’t wounded or hurt, the part that is not emotional and is pragmatic knows, believes wholeheartedly that I’ll never be alone again, not unless that’s what I want and maybe not even then. Because Nico is here to stay.
My eyes are almost clear by the time Matteo wakes up.
It’s time for him to eat, and he insists that he wants the farinata, even though his nurse warned me his appetite is almost non-existent.
I reach for the porcelain bowl of soup on the small table. “Open wide.”
He sniffs theatrically. “I’ve missed your cooking.”
I lift the spoon. He sips. “You make it best. Even better than Isabella’s. But we won’t tell her that.”
I shake my head, holding back the tears. “No, we won’t.”
He chuckles, the sound thin. “Tell me something, bambina.”
“Anything.”
“Who’s speaking at my funeral?”
My breath catches. Even knowing he jokes this way, the words destroy me. I hold the spoon up, and he takes a small mouthful.