Chapter 25
I wait until at least four bites into dinner to bring it up to my mother. At least that way there’s a small portion of food to combat the inevitable burn of stomach acid.
“So, I don’t know if it’s true or not but Alan told me if I didn’t take over the grove, I lose the business and my inheritance as well. He’s been harassing me to come into the office and sign it all over. Needless to say, I’m not jumping for joy at the prospect, even though I don’t want to run Palmer Enterprises. But it was a dick move on his part.”
“Matt, I wish you’d told me Alan’s been threatening you!”
“I was preoccupied with other stuff, sorry.” I try to sound contrite but it’s hard to feel much more than apathy giving way to anger. How could I have been so stupid, with Giuliana and with Alan?
“I saw.” She scoffs, pointing at the messages lighting up my phone screen throughout the meal. No more vibrations or chimes, it’s been soundless beacons hounding me for almost a week now. “Are you going to tell me, or do I take Buzzfeed’s word for it?”
“I heard it actually got picked up by People, so even non-internet people will be aware of it soon.”
Genevieve Palmer levels me with a look, one saying I won’t enjoy this path if I continue down it, so I sigh and come clean.
“It’s not what it looks like. I was trying to help Giuliana spy on a business model and got carried away. They didn’t have any tours left—I told the receptionist I was bummed because I planned to propose… and then all of a sudden, I had a ring, and the staff and other guests were in on it. Giuliana didn’t know. Her shock is real.”
Chest aching with the massive breath I try to suck in, my lungs stretch within my ribcage.
“It bit me in the ass. I had no idea someone was taking those pictures, and even less of an inkling they’d leak them. I’ve lived in this world, she hasn’t. I should have known better.”
Our cutlery scrapes on our plates, tiny parcels delivered into waiting mouths. It’s nowhere near Nonna’s cooking, a little too bland for my preference. Steamed asparagus, poached white fish, no crispy skin to speak of. There’s a hint of lemon and pepper—a saving grace—but I’d sell my left kidney for the pizza I had in Naples, or the focaccia Giuliana and I made that day in the kitchen. I’d have to sell my kidney, considering I’m supposedly broke now.
“How is Giuliana handling all this?” my mom asks. “I can’t imagine it’s been much easier for her.”
“I have no idea. After the pictures were leaked, she was pretty upset. That only got worse when she found out I’d lied to her about why I was in Italy and then kept lying throughout the summer. She said she never wanted to see me again, so I went. I haven’t heard anything since.”
“You need to make this right. That poor girl.”
Tension grows between us. Agitation spreads through me with each bite of food I’d rather not eat, stuck in a conversation I’d rather not be having.
“I don’t know how, not when she won’t talk to me. I already gave up my inheritance for her, I don’t know what else I could offer that would make it right.”
Please drop it, Mom. I’m so tired.
“Have you tried?”
“I don’t deserve to talk to her after I caused nothing but mess. No way am I going to insert myself there again when all I’ve done is hurt them. She made it clear she wanted me gone, and it didn’t seem like a temporary thing.”
It sounds noble, maybe I even mean it a little. But I think back to my session with Pritchard and the fear of failure—the abandonment and rejection piece rears its head.
“Then fix it without talking to her. The least you can do is reach out to the press and deny it, get them off your backs. It’s been days and it’s still going strong. I don’t think it’ll blow over this time, kiddo.”
I want this to feel normal. The conversation flowing—the intimacy of us sitting down to eat a meal together—shouldn’t pinch. But then I’d have to ignore the view of the city and the couch that costs more than a car, and the sleek bar top we’re eating at in lieu of the well-used wooden table from Abundantia. I want to tell her all about it and share the sweet moments with Chiara where I barely got a word in. I’d love to laugh over the long-game Isabella played in pretending not to understand me. It’s my mom . But we’ve never been close like that, and I don’t know how to bridge that gap.
“We may not talk all the time, but I love you. I care about how you’re doing and I’m here, okay?” Her manicured hand rests on top of mine, calming me where I’ve got my fork in a death grip.
“I love you too, Mom. I appreciate that. Enough about me though, how’ve you been?”
Her smile grows, eyes soft and I see some of those wrinkles she tries so hard to hide. My mother rarely smiles with her whole face. It’s a pleasant change.
“I’ve started working on a shoe collection. I’m not doing much runway or editorial anymore. Older models aren’t in demand. But I’ve spent more than half my life in a pair of high heels so I’m working with some designers on a line to go along with next year’s New York Fashion Week.”
The excitement beams off of her and it fills my chest with an ember, a spark of something good.
“Yeah? That’s so exciting. I’m happy for you!” And I mean it, she’s managed to thrive in an environment that’s rough on women and come out on the other side, still enthusiastic.
Smiling at each other, I want to bottle this moment, save it and send it back in time. Toss it into the Hudson or the East River and watch it bob along until an eleven-year-old me found it. I wish I could tell younger me that my parents loved me in their own way. It’s not my fault it wasn’t enough.
My parents loved each other at some point too, but by the time I was old enough to know what relationships were, there was a coldness. The ice grew and cracked until separate sheets floated, pulling us further away from each other. Now there’s dry land and my mom’s on it, solid and strong. It’s time to ask for help.
“What can we do about Alan? My therapist thinks it sounds a little shady, especially since I haven’t even seen the clause or the will itself.”
“Your therapist? You’ll go back?”
Can’t she stick to the topic? It’s hard enough asking for help, derailing my request does nothing.
“Yes, next week. But seriously. I need your help.”
“I’ll reach out to someone on the board tomorrow to get a feel for the environment there, make it sound like it’s about me. We’ll get my lawyer lined up and I’ll ask Alan for a copy. If he refuses to provide one, we can have Charlie send discovery demands and claim we plan to dispute it.”
Relief washes through me, sudden and overwhelming. It’s been just me for so long. I’ve never had someone to rely on, even with Giuliana I kept so much to myself. It’s time I let someone in.
“You can tell him I’m drying out somewhere; he’ll believe it.”
“Matt… I’m not going to badmouth you, even if it’s to lie. You’re better than that and I won’t give him the satisfaction.”
My throat constricts with emotion, with this sense of family I found and lost and have somehow tentatively found again with my mom this time. How much of the distance between us is because of my father and his looming shadow? Gathering the courage, I ask her about him, even though bringing him up might hurt her.
“Hey, do you know why Dad left Italy? I’ve been trying to piece it together and I keep getting these bits from different people but nothing makes sense.”
Isabella spoke about him with love—for the most part—and the inscription on the photograph told its own story. Andrea dropped that piece of information about Aria’s death and I have no idea how to unpack that. Everything my father said about Italy in the press made it sound like something he’d rather forget. His name change spoke to that.
Sighing, my mother tenses and I know this is a mistake. The words are out, though. All I can do is hope she doesn’t brush it aside.
“There was a woman, Aria, I think it was. It’s been so long. Thomas and I met shortly after he got here. He was clawing his way up the corporate ladder trying to fill a hole in his heart and I was getting my start in New York’s modeling scene. Both alone. Both hungry for success and fame, and everything that made us hate each other later on.”
Staring out at the city, her eyes are glassy with the past. I wait, body poised—drawn back and taut like a bowstring.
“I only asked him about it once, after we were engaged. Thomas told me that he’d betrayed his best friend and he couldn’t stand to face him. They had feelings for the same woman, but she was closer with his friend. One drunken night Thomas came onto her and they shared a kiss. Aria pulled away shortly after, explaining her feelings weren’t as strong as his, but his friend…”
“Lorenzo,” I supply, giving her a piece she doesn’t have.
“Lorenzo saw them and left, very upset. Aria wanted to go after him and she fought with Thomas, urging him to give her his car keys. Since they’d been drinking and she was so upset, he tried to stop her. When she insisted, he begged to go along with her, but she refused.”
My mother’s breath shudders out of her chest now. The past glistening between us, I can picture it somehow. Casting my mind’s eye, I see the living room how they’d left it, and the gravel road twisting up through the grove.
“Your father stayed behind and finished off the bottle. He woke up to his best friend in the hospital and the woman he believed he loved dead. Apparently, she’d caught up with Lorenzo and tried to get him to stop, but lost control of the car.”
Oh god. The photograph flashes in my mind, their broad smiles so clear in my memory. I can only imagine how ugly it must have gotten between them after.
“The rift couldn’t be repaired. Lorenzo blamed your father, Thomas blamed himself. He couldn’t stay, not with things the way they were after what he’d done. It was one of his biggest regrets. Lorenzo accused Thomas of being selfish, greedy. Always wanting what wasn’t rightfully his.”
All words I can see myself using against my father. But now I know he’s suffered loss—know he walked away from the only family he had because of the shame he felt. I’m about to be sick. Guilt drove him away the same way it did me. He wanted more than he should’ve. So have I.
Abundantia wasn’t rightfully mine. In trying to get both the grove and Giuliana, my greed tore it all away from me. And that rift can’t be repaired either.
“Are you okay?” my mother asks, probably because she’s watching me have some kind of fucked up epiphany.
“Yeah, uh… I think I might be relating to Dad for the first time and it feels like an out-of-body experience.” I try to laugh it off but my heart aches with something I don’t know how to put a name to.
With every year passing, my father seemed like more and more of a stranger. The distance grew until he began to feel less like a person to me. Thomas Palmer became a figurehead in my mind—a name, a bogeyman. Something to be defied and hated, and feared.
But maybe. Maybe he was just a man. Like me.
Flawed, fucked up. Incapable of loving in the right way—drowning. I wish I could face him now to ask him the questions I’ve finally found the words for. If I only had a few more minutes with him—to rail at him and forgive him… To look him in the eye as a man and not the lonely little boy with a stone in his chest.
Like it or not, Thomas Palmer had an immense effect on me and my life. His choices echo through mine and I walk a similar path he did. I want to tell him that I’ll fix it. I’ll do better. I’ll heal what both of us have hurt. But I can’t.
And somehow it cracks me wide open. That… missed opportunity to know him, and for him to know the man I’m becoming.
I taste salt at the back of my throat, on the corners of my lips. Air won’t pass through my nose and I’m gasping, little catches in my breathing through my tears. My mother, bless her, hesitates for only a moment before wrapping me up in a hug.
“I never cried. I never cried at the funeral.” I sob into her shoulder. “I never said goodbye because I was too pissed.”
Shushing me, she runs a gentle hand over my curls but it’s like bloodletting. The poison I’ve kept inside of me for so long is finally seeping out.
“Alan said he was glad to be rid of Dad, and I hated him for it. I hated myself even more for thinking the same thing. I’m so sorry.” I don’t know who I’m apologizing to, whether it’s her or Dad or me.
It’s sure as fuck not Alan but I can’t even spare another thought for him under the torrent of this grief and guilt that I’ve carried with me all year. Anger, black ichor, leaches out and my body releases it through every sob and tear. My mother holds me through it all, rocking me against her shoulder.
I’m all stages of myself at once. I’m the petulant child, the rebellious teenager, the broken angry man. Every part of me clings to her as my repressed pain pushes toward the surface. My father wasn’t perfect, and I’m not either. But I can let him go now, after almost thirty years I finally have a grip on the man I wish I’d gotten to know.
I grieve for the untouchable Thomas Palmer and the unfamiliar Tommaso de Palma, and by the time my tears have dried he’s not a stranger anymore. He’ll be a part of me forever and the best way I can honor him—both the good and bad parts—is to learn from his mistakes.
“Thank you, Mom. I’m sorry for all of this, but I’m so glad I have you.” Pulling away from her, her eyes are red-rimmed too, and the tip of her nose pink.
She plants a kiss on my forehead and although there’s no medical reason why it should, it makes the pounding in my head just a little less painful.
“I love you, and he did too. Even though he didn’t know how to show it. Even though he did it wrong.”
“I know. I know that now.”
“We’re going to figure this out, I promise.” My mother’s smile is kind, tired but full of reassurance. Choosing to believe that despite how drained I feel now, I nod.
I close myself off in the guest room. The space is dark except for the city lights beyond. This world is familiar but so different now that I’m the one changed. New York never fit properly, and now I doubt it ever will. Italy gave me a peace and happiness I’d never imagined for myself.
The least I can do is try to return some of that peace and happiness to Giuliana.
Opening my laptop, I pull up a blank document and get started. It’s time to set things straight and to fix what I can, for myself and for Giuliana. For our fathers and the past that sits between all of us like an open wound.