Epilogue
Naturally, Esther has the presidential suite in the Delano Plaza. A long table is set out for breakfast, in the plush reception room with views over the city. All four of us arrive with big appetites. She has a warm, welcoming hug for us all and, when she sees us, a big twinkle lights up in her eye.
“If I’m not mistaken, it looks like you all have something to celebrate.” She gives me a smile and a big grin before she asks Carlo, “Some news you’d like to share, perhaps?”
“We can’t keep it a secret, at least not from you, Mom. All three of us are totally and hopelessly in love with Lucia.”
“Well, that’s understandable. You have great taste and she’s fabulous.” She takes my hand in both of hers. “So, what do you propose to do about it?”
“I brought the thing you asked me to find, Mom. I waited until now, so that you can be with us when I give it to her.”
She tells me, “It was my mother’s engagement ring, and I promised myself if I ever did have a son — I think you know there was some delay there — I promised myself that he should have it for his bride. When I had two sons, well, then I didn’t know what I was going to do. I really couldn’t decide. And then you came along, Alessio. You are like a son to me.”
“You’ve always been a loving mother to me, Donna Fortuna.”
“But now, I understand that this one ring, well maybe…” … “Oh, sorry. Am I jumping the gun a bit here?” … “Really, boys. You know I don’t want to steal your thunder. But, here. If the cat’s not out of the bag, we can all see its paws and its beady eyes.” She turns back to me. “I’m giving this ring to all three of my boys. To do with it as they will. And you, my dear, I’m giving you my blessing to do whatever you want.”
She beams and steps aside.
Carlo takes a small box from his pocket and holds it up toward me.
“This was what Mom wanted us to find, to give to you. My grandmother’s engagement ring.”
Carlo pops the antique box open. On a purple velvet cushion sits a beautiful threaded silver ring with a setting of sapphires surrounding a massive diamond.
“On behalf of us all,” Carlo says, and in the center of the room, all three men, Alessio, Bruno and Carlo, all get down in front of me on one knee.
“Lucy, Lucia, Lucrezia Benedetti, will you make us the happiest men on earth, and do us the supreme honor of being our bride, and spending the rest of your life with us?”
Now that I’m surrounded by the men I love, I feel totally secure.
Esther has mischievous delight in her voice as she tells us, “A bishop I know in San Lorenzo is very progressive and open-minded. I think he might also be very available, given the right conditions. I’ll have him flown over.”
She holds the door as we step out.
“We must go to the opera together more. Don Giovanni is at the Met this month. It’s the story of a man destroyed and consumed in the fires of hell, because of how badly he’s treated the women in his life. I think I might book a box for us all.”
I let the men go ahead while I hang back with Esther for a private word.
“Esther, if you want to, you could stay. You can still be the head of the family.”
She blinks. “Take charge of all that chaos and mayhem? Do what you’re going to do? No. No, thank you, not me.” There’s a mischievous edge on her smile. “Besides, after all that’s gone down? And I’ve been away. Nearly ten years. No, no. You want this. I think I’ll stay to see you settled in, make sure everything is secure, then I’ll be back to the Med, thanks all the same.”
Before she lets me go she says, “Maybe you’re smarter than I was. Maybe you’re luckier. Both my husbands were weak. Stephano, my first husband, was a wonderful man,” she lets out a wistful sigh. “But he was weak for money and power. I did love him, though. My second, well, you saw what he was. He was pathetically weak for cucchia, and look where that got him.” She sniffs. “Those three? Well, two of them are my sons, so all I have to say about that is if you hurt either of them…”
“If I hurt them?”
“I’ll hunt you down like a dog.”
“And the other one? Alessio?”
She shrugs. “It’s you who wants to marry him. Whatever happens to him, I don’t care one way or the other. I always thought of him as cold as a fish.” She gives me her calculating smile. “You seem to know something about him that I don’t.”
After all that’s happened, coming home is strange for me. My old family house feels different and it’s almost like I’ve become another person. I wanted to bring my men to give Daddy a chance to meet them, but I worried that he would think I was coming to him with a mob.
All three of them still insist on coming with me — they hardly let me go anywhere without them — but I make them wait outside the closed doors of Daddy’s study.
He’s not going to like what I have to say. It will be hard for him to take it in. If he felt like I came to him with force, that would only make it tougher for him to accept it and take it in.
I don’t want to make it any harder than it needs to be for him. Not that I’m giving any choice. That’s not the way in the Life, and he knows it. Still, it takes a while to sink in.
He swivels in his executive chair behind his big desk. With the glow of the sun lighting him from the side, I see the all his trappings of strength, all the props that he relies on, as signs of weakness.
Now I have a different perspective, all his fears seem so exposed and out in the open. My heart aches for him.