Chapter 15 What I Wanted for Myself
SERAFINA
Sunday morning, I wake to sunlight streaming through my childhood curtains and the faint smell of bread toasting downstairs. My body is pleasantly tired from yesterday's dancing, my feet slightly sore from the uneven grass, and I lie still for a moment, letting myself remember.
Rafael's hand at my waist. The music slowing. The way he looked at me when I said he could pick me up next time.
I press my face into the pillow. What am I doing? I'm supposed to be figuring out my life, not waltzing around a village fair with the man I'm divorcing.
But I'm not sorry. That's the terrifying part. I'm not sorry at all.
I get up and pull on comfortable clothes, then make my way downstairs. My mother is at the kitchen table with her coffee and a stack of seed catalogs, circling things she wants for the garden. She looks up when I come in, her eyes crinkling at whatever she sees on my face.
"Good morning." She pushes a cup toward the empty chair across from her. "There's bread, if you're hungry."
"Thanks." I pour myself water instead of reaching for the coffee pot, then sit down and tear a piece from the loaf. "Papa already out?"
"He wanted to check the irrigation before it gets too hot." She turns a page in her catalog. "You were late last night. I heard your car around ten."
"We danced." I concentrate on tearing the bread instead of meeting her eye. "At the festival. Longer than I expected."
"Good." She circles something in the catalog without looking up. "You needed that."
I tear another piece of bread and chew it slowly. The morning feels different somehow, charged with something I can't quite name. Not just the lingering warmth from yesterday, but something else. Something that's been building in the back of my mind.
After breakfast, I tell my mother I want to work in the pantry for a few hours. She nods without asking questions, and I gather my things and close the door behind me.
The converted pantry is exactly as I left it, my notebook open on the small table, my three trial bottles lined up beside it. I sit down and uncap the first bottle, wetting a smelling strip and lifting it to my nose.
The bergamot opens bright and sharp, giving way to the softer neroli heart, the Atlas cedar rising underneath to anchor everything. This is the blend I've been refining for months, the one Fiorella helped me evaluate, the one that finally feels close to finished.
I cap the first bottle and prepare a second strip from the next trial, then close that bottle too. I compare the two versions. The cedar is warmer in this one, more present without overwhelming the citrus. I make a note in my notebook, then sit back and think.
The replacement bergamot came from my original supplier after I found the fault in the first batch. The cedar was Fiorella's suggestion, a specific variety with notes I hadn't considered. The neroli is good quality, reliable, exactly what I needed.
But none of it comes from the Visconti estate.
I look from the strip to the window, where a branch of orange blossom catches the sun.
I know these scents as separate things: ingredients on my bench, fruit in the groves where I grew up.
What if I started with the groves? What if the estate sold something I would choose to work with, instead of sending all its fruit away for someone else to decide its value?
I draw the notebook toward me, flipping to a fresh page.
Not formulas this time, but questions. What would estate-grown citrus mean for a blend like this?
Could the Visconti groves produce botanical-grade essences, not just commodity fruit?
Is there a market for something small-batch, traceable, rooted in a specific place?
The questions multiply faster than I can write them. I don't have answers, but I have a direction. I have been thinking about the blend I want to make. Now I can see a question behind it, about what I could make from this place and who else might want it.
He helped me move the equipment into the workshop. He stayed that Saturday when he could have gone back to work. He's been asking about my blends, listening when I explain what I'm trying to do. Maybe it's time to show him what I've been imagining.
I pull out my phone and find Fiorella's name, typing a quick message: Working on something new. Can I ask you about botanical sourcing later this week?
Her reply comes within minutes: Always. Come by when you're ready.
I put the phone aside and keep writing. By the time the afternoon light slants through the small window, I have three pages of notes and the beginning of an idea that might actually work.
***
Monday morning, I call Rafael before I can talk myself out of it.
"Can you pick me up at ten?" I keep my voice steady. "I want to go to the workshop. There's something I want to show you."
"Of course." I can hear him moving, the creak of a chair, the sound of footsteps. "I'll be there."
I spend the next hour getting ready, which is ridiculous because I'm going to work, not to impress anyone.
But I reject the first shirt I take out and spend too long choosing another.
I wrap one of the trial bottles in a cloth and put it beside my notebook, leaving the other two lined up in the pantry.
By the time Rafael's car pulls into the courtyard, I'm standing by the door with my jacket over my arm.
He gets out and opens the passenger door for me, his expression curious but not presumptuous. "You look like you're planning something."
"Maybe." I slide into the seat and settle my bag on my lap. "Drive. I'll explain when we get there."
The drive to the Visconti estate takes only a few minutes, the familiar road winding between groves that belong to both our families.
I've driven this route a thousand times, but today it feels different.
Today I'm going back to a place I left, and I'm bringing something with me that might change everything.
Rafael parks in the courtyard and leads me through the main house to the east wing. The workshop door is closed, and when he opens it, the familiar smell of citrus and wood and something that's just mine washes over me.
Almost everything is where I left it. The extraction setup, the larger scales, the rows of bottles and jars that hold my supplies. The empty shelf near the window where my small scale and droppers used to sit is the only sign that anything has changed.
"I kept it as you arranged it." Rafael stays near the door, giving me space. "I didn't know what you'd want moved."
"Thank you." I set my bag on the workbench and pull out my notebook, then the trial bottle I brought from my parents' house. "Come look at this."
He moves closer, curious, watching as I uncap the bottle and wet a smelling strip.
"Tell me what you smell." I hand him the strip, prepare one for myself, and cap the trial bottle before setting it beside my notebook.
He lifts it to his nose and breathes in, his expression focused. "Citrus. Something bright at the top, then softer, then something like wood underneath."
"That's bergamot opening into neroli, with Atlas cedar as the base." I compare my strip with the scent still lingering at the mouth of the bottle. "This is what I've been working on. The blend I kept asking you to try."
"It's beautiful." He keeps the strip close, trying it again before looking at me. "I recognize it. But I've never stopped to notice how it changes."
"I've been comparing the cedar in the different trials." I set my strip on the workbench. "Fiorella helped me hear what I was trying to describe."
"What were you trying to describe?" He lays his strip beside mine, careful to keep the wet end off the wood.
"Warmth without heaviness." I show him the brief note I copied from Fiorella's feedback, then turn to yesterday's pages. "I don't want the cedar to cover the citrus. I want to keep what makes it distinctive."
Rafael leans in to read my cramped handwriting. "These are notes about the estate."
"I was thinking yesterday." I point to the relevant section. "About where these ingredients come from. The bergamot is from my regular supplier, the replacement for that faulty batch. The cedar was Fiorella's suggestion. But none of it comes from here."
"From the estate?" He looks up at me, something shifting in his expression.
"Your family has some of the best citrus groves in Sicily.
" I close the notebook and meet his eyes.
"Bitter orange trees that could yield neroli.
Bergamot I recognize as soon as someone breaks the peel.
What if you did something with that? Not just selling fruit, but extracting the essences.
Creating something that couldn't come from anywhere else. "
Rafael is quiet for a long moment. I watch his face, trying to gauge his reaction, afraid I've said too much too fast.
"Show me." He gestures toward the door that leads to the interior hallway. "Show me what you're thinking."
We walk through the house and out into the morning light, following the path between the orange trees.
The groves stretch in every direction, rows of trees heavy with fruit and blossoms, the air thick with scent.
I stop beneath one of the older trees and reach up to touch a cluster of white flowers.
"This is bitter orange." I cup the blossoms in my hand, letting Rafael see. "The flowers are what you distill for neroli. The peel gives you bitter orange oil. One tree, multiple products, all of them valuable to the right buyers."
"We've always just sold the fruit." Rafael is watching me intently. "Processed what we couldn't sell into juice."
"I know." I let go of the flowers and start walking again. "I'm not suggesting you abandon that. I want to find out whether some of the harvest could become ingredients people choose for their quality. We'd have to ask what they actually need, not assume a pretty label would sell it."
"And you could help with that?" He falls into step beside me. "You know this world."