Chapter 18
I storm up to the house, my breath a caged, wild thing in my chest. The photograph shakes in my trembling grip and I almost start patting my pockets for my vape before I remember that it’s been ages at this point since I’ve been able to use it.
I’m not sure what I expect to happen. I can only assume that my shit’s about to be blown wide open, but I can’t wait anymore. Running isn’t an option at this point. I’ve avoided my father long enough. There’s no rationality here, no more hiding. Giuliana might not know who I am and what me being here means, but I’m betting Isabella is more informed than she’s been letting on.
The sun hangs lower, not quite sunset, and I could’ve gotten at least another hour in before the sky changed colors. Storming in through the front door, I don’t bother with my shoes. I don’t even check if she’s even in the kitchen before I burst in.
Isabella looks up startled when I intrude, an explosion of ingredients on the countertop in front of her.
“Matteo!” she scolds, her hand against her heart as if to still the sudden ferocity of its beating.
“Isabella, we need to talk.”
She must see something on my face—must know that what I have clutched in my hand is important.
“ Si . Go shower. Then we talk.”
My rage and confusion drain away when she speaks to me. In English.
“You speak English ?” It sounds stupid but I’m being torn in so many different directions.
“Of course. Who do you think helps Chiara with her schoolwork?”
“I just assumed that Giuliana… and you… why didn’t you say anything? ”
“Giuliana is busy working. I look after them both,” she says with a gravity I know I don’t understand. I’ve never had to care for another person and see to their wellbeing on a daily basis. I know without her saying it that it’s more than “looking after.” It’s feeding and clothing, and crying and worrying. It’s midnights and early mornings, scabbed knees and rumbling tummies, and heartbreak.
“And also, maybe I don’t like to talk to you. I speak Italian so you leave me in peace. Shower. You stink.” She chases me out with a wave and I set the paperwork on the table we’ve eaten all our meals on, before escaping to my room.
The spray is scalding but it washes rust and dust from my skin. After a few minutes of scrubbing, I’m grounded again.
You knew this was going to happen, sooner or later .
Yeah, but I’d hoped for later. Much later. So much later I’d be gone and I wouldn’t have to face Giuliana and my lies.
I pull on a pair of loose shorts and a t-shirt, my bare feet cool against the stone floors. They slap as I jog down the stairs, eager to get into this conversation.
The countertop is littered with flour, olive oil, tomatoes and fresh herbs, among other ingredients. On the stove something else bubbles away. Isabella glances up from what she’s doing and we both look over at the stack of papers. The plans wait and hidden between yellowing sheets—the photograph.
“You know. You know who I am.”
Her lips thin into a line, her face pulling down into unhappy wrinkles.
“It wasn’t difficult to recognize you. You walk around with his name and his face. No measure of time is enough to erase him from this land and its memory.”
“What happened? I… I came here?—”
Isabella huffs a sigh, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. She looks tired, weary in a way I haven’t noticed. Is the stress of the harvest getting to her too? Where has Giuliana been and has Isabella had to pick up the slack in her absence?
“I know why you came. You lied. You are not the volunteer Giuliana was expecting.”
She lets the words hang there for a second and when I don’t deny it, she quirks a brow and carries on.
“I kept waiting for you to tell the truth, to open yourself up to us but it seems you never planned to. My granddaughter is working her hands to the bone and trying to run from her heart, and you stand here and lie to me. Be honest, Lorenzo is dead and now you came to take .” She spits the last word like a curse and I lift my hand to stop her, to calm her like I would a wild animal.
“No.”
She scoffs, sucking her teeth at me with a dismissive gesture thrown in for good measure.
“Maybe at first. But not now. I didn’t know what I was going to find. I didn’t even know it was an olive grove. My father’s lawyer told me it was some kind of farm and I needed to come here and?—”
“And take ,” she reiterates, and I nod.
“But I met her in Gravina and I didn’t know who she was—only that she knocked me right off my feet and onto my ass.”
My statement is met with a dry chuckle and Isabella sprinkles flour on the counter as I talk.
“I’m giving it to her. All of it. It’s not mine and it’s never been mine. The land belongs to her. It’s in her blood.”
Isabella sighs. Another pot beside her boils, steam swirling and her exhalation interrupts the cloud of heat. “Even if you tried to take it, she won’t let you. I would leave, and go back to Gravina and my shop if we lost the grove. But Giuliana… testarda . Stubborn.” She emphasizes it with a flick of her wrist.
“I’m not taking it. That might have been the plan at first but I know her.” I care about her. “I can’t hurt her like that.”
“So, you hurt her with lies instead?”
“It’s too late for that. It was never going to end happily for me. She doesn’t need to know. I’ll leave after the harvest and the grove will belong to her. I’ll be nothing more than a summer distraction.”
“ Idiota .”
“Yeah, what else is new? But I also came here for answers.” I head over to the table and rummage through the sheets of paper to grab the photograph again. It shakes in my grasp as I walk it over to Isabella, to show her what I’ve found.
She wipes her hands on the apron tied around her waist, flour sticking to the fabric in stripes. Taking the photo from me her face changes incrementally, softening, fingertips caressing Lorenzo’s face. She does the same thing I did, turning it over to read the inscription on the back.
“I know nothing of my father’s life before he came to New York. He all but erased himself. Changed his name. It was as if Tommaso de Palma was a demon he had to exorcize. Why? Why did he leave? He looks so happy in that picture.”
It takes her a second to turn her focus from the photograph of her deceased son to my questions.
“They did everything together. High school friends. Your father grew up in a lonely home in Gravina. Your nonno was often away on business and Tommaso had no siblings. Lorenzo struggled at school, better with his hands than with the books. They balanced each other. Tommaso helped Lorenzo with studying and Lorenzo brought him to my shop after school. During holidays he came here to the grove.”
I imagine my father, or more accurately myself at that age, trying to figure life out on my own. Isabella turns the heat off of one of the pots on the stove, the roiling water stilling after a minute or so.
“When my husband died a few years after they graduated, Lorenzo had to take over. He struggled. Tommaso stepped in, offered him a loan but Lorenzo refused. Tommaso called it an investment instead. They lived at the old farmhouse. They worked the land. It took a long time for the yield to come but they were so happy when it did.”
“And then what happened?”
She hands me the photo, turning away to pull a few potatoes out of a now-cooling pot with a pair of tongs. It feels so strange to me that we’re doing this here. My past is being unfurled before me in a cozy Italian kitchen. Chiara’s little ears are probably nearby and about to be my undoing.
“Where’s Chiara?”
Isabella laughs, a harsh sound. “She is helping Patrizia with a litter of kittens they found near the farmhouse. Don’t worry. Your secrets stay in this room.”
“I know I don’t deserve that, but thank you anyway.”
Isabella shrugs as if to say it’s a stupid choice but it’s mine to make.
“What happened to them?” I repeat.
Isabella points at the photograph, to the woman’s face.
“Young love. Stupidity.” The words are filled with venom and I take a closer look at her face. I find none of Giuliana in her.
“Not their mother?”
“No, thank God.” She says it with such vehemence I wonder if there’s more to it. What did the unraveling of these friendships and relationships look like on this side of the world?
“So, she came between them?”
Isabella nods and opens her mouth, no doubt to spew some more angry words, but the front door slams shut in the distance. Isabella’s words are a low rush when she speaks.
“Now you know. No good looking too long at the past. My concern is now. With my granddaughter. What is going on with you and Giuliana?” Isabella hits me with that stare—the one I know she’s perfected over years of being a mom and grandmother.
“She wants to keep things professional, and it’s for the best.”
“But?”
I suck in the aromatic air, my heart constricting in my chest.
“She’s… devastating. There’s no way I’m going to walk out of here and be okay.” It feels good to be able to talk about it—to say the words out loud. I’m not going to go so far as to drop the BIG word, but this is accurate enough.
“Then fix it. Make it work.” Clipped, brokering no argument.
“I can’t, not while I hold the grove hostage. I need to find a lawyer so I can sign it over officially.”
Isabella nods, tapping her finger to her chest as if she’s ready to hook me up with someone, when we hear a voice break through our conversation.
“ Sono tornata !” Giuliana shouts from down the hall and my stomach drops. I grab the papers, gathering them into a pile again and clutching them to my chest.
“Give them to me.” Isabella hisses under her breath, hand outstretched. I hesitate for a second but if she’s going to out me it’ll happen with or without these papers. “I’ll bring them to you later, with some more information. For now, you stay. Fix.”
“Isabella, please don’t leave me with her. I don’t know what to do with all this mess inside me,” I plead, dumbly.
She ignores me. The papers are tucked under her arm as she walks toward her granddaughter, and I wait for my world to collapse. No arguing with her, and my respect for her only grows. She’s raised these girls and kept everything together despite loss and grief beyond my comprehension.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have grown up with someone like her around to care?
It’s not as mean as usual, more like a longing that we both share and I can’t help but agree. A grandmother would have been nice; a sister and a stable home where you could rely on everyone, even nicer.
Giuliana enters the kitchen, blinking when she sees me standing there near the ingredients.
“Nonna said…” she trails off, confused at my presence before she collects herself. “Nonna asked me to finish making the focaccia.”
I look down at the counter, at the flour and potato and various other ingredients and my confusion grows. “As far as I know focaccia is a bread, so where does the potato come in?”
“It’s specific to the region. The potato makes the bread softer.”
“Do you mind if I watch?” So I can spend time with you. So I can experience a bit of the culture I never got to enjoy.
Giuliana looks reluctant but shrugs. Coming up to the counter, she adds flour and yeast, swirling them together with her fingers. Once sufficiently combined she pushes the potatoes through some kind of press to deposit them out as potato bits. Better to incorporate, I suppose?
“How does this work? I’ve never seen bread made before.”
“Focaccia Pugliese is different from other kinds. We add potato which changes the consistency and gives it a more robust taste. First, I’ll make a little flour volcano and I’ll slowly add the other ingredients until it’s a dough. Then comes kneading and finally resting so it can proof. Only after all that can we put it in the oven. It’s a labor of love and worth the wait.”
My stupid heart wants me to contribute to the conversation—feel it flow between us—but the extent of my cooking knowledge is that episode of Schitt’s Creek where they’re arguing about what it means to “fold in the cheese.” What does it mean to fold in the cheese?
Giuliana adds the potato and then the rest of the ingredients. Her hands work the dough until it’s incorporated enough to move around the work station. Sprinkling some more flour on the worktop, the dough ball glistens from the water and olive oil on its surface.
The silence should be awkward—hell, I’m standing watching her knead dough—mere feet between us. But it’s the most delicious feeling being this close.
“About the other night—” she starts.
“I’m sorry. I put you in an uncomfortable position and it wasn’t right. I should have consulted you on all of it. Getting caught up in stuff is a bad habit of mine, but it’s not an excuse.”
Her hands still, and she looks up at me. Her eyes are naked, her mouth soft, and I wish I could close the distance between us. I’d kill to kiss away the uncertainty I see there—the conflict of the chasm between us.
“Where did you go?”
“Umberto. He called Arturo and tried to move our harvest date. Thankfully Arturo had the foresight to call the grove to confirm before he did. It could have been a disaster.”
Fatigue sits in the hollows under her eyes and I want nothing more than to take all this away.
“I’m getting so sick of that motherfucker.”
“ Matteo !” she admonishes, her hands gripping the dough.
“I mean it. Something’s got to be done.”
Giuliana nods. “I’ve been in contact with Arturo. Between him and Nonna, I think we have a plan. There’s still some finalizing to do, so I’ll be in and out before the harvest. Hopefully we can pull it all together without any further sabotage from his end.”
“Oh, he has no idea what’s coming. Umberto will rue the day he tried to mess with the Santoro women.”
Some of the stress melts from her shoulders at my joke and Giuliana manages a half smile. God, she’s stunning.
“The grove feels so empty when you’re not here.” It’s impossible to miss the longing in my tone. I know I’ve said too much but I can’t care anymore. We’re on borrowed time.
Heat fills her cheeks at my statement, her gaze filling with emotion before she looks away. Giuliana refocuses her efforts on the focaccia dough with renewed vigor. Saying that was stupid but I have nothing left to lose. I’m hyper aware of our breathing and the little hitch in hers before she speaks again.
“Matteo, we’re so close to the harvest. I don’t want to mess this up.”
“I know how important Abundantia is to you. I’m not going to jeopardize that.”
Giuliana’s voice is soft when she responds. “I’m not talking about the grove.”
“Lia?” Stepping up to her back, I close the distance between us—catching her between my body and the counter. We don’t touch, but I can feel the body heat coming off of her and bask in the faint scent of her skin. My lungs stretch with the desperate breath I take, hoping to imprint it onto my memory. It’s sunlight and earth soaked in the first raindrops of the season, clean linen and the tiniest hint of something floral. Giuliana smells like summer and everything I’ve been missing my whole life.
“Please. We’re friends. Everything is muddy enough as it is.” She punches into the dough as if it’s personally offended her. Hell, she’s probably picturing my face.
Her hair is tied up into a messy bun. A few errant strands escape their confines and I caress the back of her neck with my thumb, unable to keep my distance anymore. She halts, her breath catching in her throat, and her body leaning back into mine.
“Teo...” It’s choked, the words a mere wisp and I know that she feels the same way I do. The nickname was real. I didn’t imagine it that night. The implication of it spreads through me with unbearable heat. My name is on her lips and my limbs are molten honey at the sound of it. Giuliana is similarly affected. Her body melting into mine tells the truth even as she tries to deny it. Why won’t she just let herself have this?
I lean into her to whisper back, to exorcize some of the yearning threatening to drag me under. “I can’t stop thinking about you. You haunt me. The feel of your skin, the sound of your moans. I remember it all and it’s torture.”
Her hands grip the countertop. The curve of her back presses against my chest and I feel like I’m going to burst out of my skin, as if this emotion is too much to physically contain.
“Tell me you think about it, too. Put me out of my misery.”
I hear the hitch of her inhalation—the shudder as it leaves her lungs and her body eases against me. Wrapping my arm around her, I pull her tighter to me. Splaying my hand across her soft stomach, every hot curve of her is pressed against my body. My lips find that spot beneath her ear, along the side of her neck—the one I know will raise goosebumps on her skin.
Giuliana whimpers. Her hand raises up to grip my hair, arching her neck to fall into the sensation.
“ Tell me. ” Please. I can’t be alone in this. I can’t stand it.
“You’re being cruel,” she says. It’s bordering on a sob—an angry huff—and a malicious part of me delights in knowing I affect her as much as she does me. Her hand drops from my hair, clutching the countertop again.
“You’re the one driving me to madness. Watching you every day. Seeing the sunlight catch on your hair. Hearing your laugh, watching it flow through your body. Your hands teaching mine, showing me the care you coax into something from nothing. So close and not close enough.”
My hands stroke down the outsides of her arms, prying her grip from the counter and threading our fingers together. I work our hands into the dough, feeling it give beneath us, and her body moves against mine as we do.
Heat rises within my core and I know it’ll go unanswered, unsatisfied. But this is more than I hoped for and more than she should allow. It’ll only wreck us more when I leave.
“Matteo, we can’t.”
“We won’t. Let’s just have this moment, no further.”
I can tell she’s thinking about it—considering the ramifications of letting down her guard and crossing this line, even if it’s just a tiptoe.
“I miss you.”
It’s an admission I hadn’t planned to make, one that isn’t very sensical considering I’m closer to her now than I’ve been in weeks. But it holds true. I want so much more than this. I want it all.
Giuliana nods. There’s no more talking. She can’t say it—can’t give in to this—no matter how much we both might want it. We stand like that, getting the dough ready. Working it, rolling it, our bodies undulate in their own kind of dance that serves only to seduce, never satisfy. I’m acutely aware of our bodies touching. It’s impossible to tell how long we’ve been here but the sun dips toward the horizon and Giuliana turns the pasta e fagioli on the stove to a bare simmer.
I stand, shadowing her, caught in her gravity as we pretend time doesn’t exist. She works the dough into a longer, rectangular shape and places it into a pan. Spreading the pan with olive oil that I’d die to lick off her fingers but don’t.
“When it’s done resting, I’ll chop the tomatoes, sprinkle them over the surface, and crack salt over the top. For now, we give it a few hours to rest.” Her voice is husky, overly loud after our weighted silence.
Giuliana shows me how springy the dough is, both of us creating divots on the top that are supposed to add to the texture. I don’t step out of her orbit until she has to cover it and put it aside to rest, and it astounds me how far a few steps take me. We won’t have a moment like this again, not so close to harvest. Not with everything riding on this succeeding.
I’ll finish up the renovation (as much of it as I can) and get the papers signed over to her. No one, least of all me, will take this from her—from her family. And I’ll tuck these moments away for when my mind threatens to drown me in hate. I’ll know what I had here, what I chose to protect, and it will be enough.
“It’ll take a while, likely overnight before we will bake it. There's nothing else to be done now.”
Just like that the spell is broken. Giuliana wraps her arms around her abdomen, as if to shield herself from something—from me. I nod and turn away before I do something else we’ll regret, like sampling her lips and losing myself.
The sunset paints the sky like a bruise, purple and red that melt into flame.
I stand there until my body feels like a stone and the cool breeze clears my mind. In the distance Isabella calls for Chiara to come back to the house. They must be getting ready for dinner, the soup somehow not appetizing after all that.
Chiara’s little legs come bounding up the hill, and she pauses to look at me while catching her breath. She smiles up at me and I know she’s about to launch into a breathless ramble about the kittens. But she stops, looking at me, puzzled. Isabella calls out for her again and she shrugs, rushing toward the house.
Chiara looks over her shoulder as she goes, giggling, the words almost lost in her haste. “Matteo… why do you have flour in your hair?”