9
GAbrIELA DUARTE
The old rose garden wasn’t in the contract.
It was private, excluded from the commercial project.
I’d known it existed before I saw the beds, but not that it connected to the library, or about Elisabetta’s inscription.
I opened a separate survey file. Even if Luca didn’t want the garden restored, the drawings needed to record what we’d found.
I asked a former professor in Florence to recommend nurseries specializing in historic plants and prepared photographs of the leaves for identification. Before bed, I had a sketch to discuss with the landscape architect and an estimate that still needed confirming.
Two days after the discovery in the library, the road reopened. I went back to the guesthouse for clothes and met the landscape architect at the Palazzo halfway through the morning. Sofia was waiting at the gate to the private garden.
She wore green rubber boots, a beige coat, and carried the silver cane, which sank alarmingly into the mud.
“There were white roses along the wall,” she said. “Elisabetta insisted they reflected the moonlight. In the middle, she planted a red variety that Luca destroyed playing soccer.”
“I was eight,” Luca said behind us.
I turned.
He was walking over with Paola, keeping clear of the thorns. His eyes went to my hand on the gate, then to my face.
Since the library, he hadn’t mentioned the passage or the time we’d spent holding hands. In meetings, he was formal. When I caught him looking at me, it took him a moment to turn back to the papers.
“You weren’t invited,” Sofia informed him.
“It’s my property.”
“That argument is losing its originality.”
I hid my smile and held out a copy of the proposal.
“I want to include the garden in the restoration.”
He didn’t take it.
“No.”
“You haven’t heard the proposal.”
“You’ve heard my answer.”
Sofia tapped her cane against a stone.
“Take the report, Luca. Even tyrants pretend to listen to their advisers.”
He took the folder from me.
“The garden isn’t part of the commercial project.”
“It could be. More of the original layout survives than you’d think. We found the irrigation channels, some of the beds, and three old rosebushes still alive by the south wall.”
“The hotel will have enough gardens.”
“This wouldn’t just be decorative. The library passage gives us a unique connection between the two spaces. We could restore the pavilion and make the garden part of the historic wing.”
“How much?”
“There’s an estimate on the last page. The final cost depends on the plant and soil analyses.”
“Depends. The most expensive word on a construction site.”
“Which is why you do the survey before you commission the work.”
He still hadn’t opened the folder. I folded my arms.
“Is this about the cost, or the fact that it was your mother’s garden?”
Paola studied her tablet. The landscape architect moved away to examine a bed. Luca kept the folder shut.
“Don’t use my mother to get a proposal approved again.”
“I’m not using anyone.”
“You found an inscription and decided to turn something private into an attraction for hotel guests.”
“I found part of the palazzo’s history.”
“My family isn’t material for your project.”
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t turn their home into a hotel.”
His eyes went cold.
“The proposal is rejected.”
He handed the folder to Paola and walked away. Sofia watched him disappear between the cypresses.
“Leave that with me,” she said, holding out a hand to Paola.
I looked at the overgrown beds.
“He doesn’t want guests here. He’s right about that.”
“Neither do I. But I’d like to sit on that bench again without someone having to hack a path to it with a machete.”
She pointed to a rosebush almost swallowed by ivy.
“Elisabetta died when Luca was ten. His father remarried within a year and forbade any mention of her illness. He had the garden locked because Luca kept running away here.”
I felt the weight of it.
“He told me his father sold the Milan house when he was eleven. I didn’t know he’d been kept out of here too.”
“For months, he’d hide here whenever someone mentioned his mother. My son-in-law thought a padlock would solve it.”
I looked at the gate. “And it stayed locked after he grew up?”
“Yes. I kept putting off asking. Until today.”
I spent the rest of the morning with the landscape architect.
Sofia had brought letters and photographs, but I left the envelopes closed while we talked about the land.
I’d proposed opening the garden to guests without asking what the family wanted.
Before I redrew anything, I needed to put that right.
With Sofia, I worked out an alternative.
The garden would stay private, the library passage closed to guests.
The landscape architect suggested consulting a local foundation about the historic varieties.
Sofia wanted workshops for children undergoing long-term treatment, on days agreed with the family.
She showed us letters about a similar initiative Elisabetta had supported.
I wrote it down as a possibility, subject to the facilities and partners we could arrange.
Paola sent Luca the study and kept that afternoon’s technical meeting on the schedule. Sofia sat beside the landscape architect. Beatrice took the head of the table before Luca arrived.
“I don’t see why we’re discussing a proposal the president has already rejected,” she said, leafing through the documents.
“Because it’s been revised.”
“Without authorization.”
“It’s an alternative for consideration. No one’s started any work.”
Lorenzo leaned back and watched us.
“Let her present it, Beatrice.”
I explained the new concept, the preliminary estimate, and the possibility of outside funding. Paola supported the technical integration. The landscape architect confirmed that the surviving roses might be rare local varieties. When I finished, Beatrice closed the report.
“How touching.”
She made it sound like an insult.
“And feasible.”
“You’ve been talking to Sofia about Luca’s mother, haven’t you?”
“Sofia provided historical records.”
“And personal details.”
I kept my expression neutral.
“Those have nothing to do with the project.”
“They do when a contractor uses a family’s grief to influence financial decisions.”
The room went quiet.
“What exactly are you accusing me of?”
Beatrice clasped her hands on the table.
“You find an inscription, and two days later you want money spent in Luca’s mother’s name. Perhaps you think he can’t say no if you get Sofia involved.”
Sofia sat straighter.
“The workshops were my idea, Beatrice. I don’t need Gabriela to speak for me.”
I put down my pen before I gripped it any harder.
“And we can consider the survey without the workshops,” I added. “The garden needs work either way.”
“Luca disagreed.”
“Luca reacted before he read it.”
“And you think you understand him better than someone who’s been beside him for fifteen years?”
She was staking a claim. I recognized it, and hated the sting it gave me.
“I don’t need to understand him to understand my work.”
“But you seem willing to get to know him to keep it.”
“Enough,” Luca said.
No one had heard him come in. He stood by the door without his jacket, his face closed. He crossed to the table and took the report from Beatrice.
“Gabriela hasn’t exploited anyone.”
Beatrice went a little pale.
“You didn’t hear the presentation.”
“I read the revised proposal an hour ago.”
I looked at Paola. She hadn’t moved, but a small flick of her eyes confirmed she’d sent the file.
“Then you know she’s trying to use emotion to overturn your decision,” Beatrice insisted.
“She’s doing her job. Correcting a decision I made before I had all the information.”
“Luca—”
“If you have financial objections, show me the numbers. Otherwise, don’t question a professional’s integrity in front of her colleagues again.”
Beatrice gathered her things.
“As you wish.”
She stopped beside me on her way out.
“He changed his mind today,” she murmured. “Don’t count on it happening every time.”
“The proposal changed. That’s why.”
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.
“If that’s what you’d like to believe.”
I held her gaze.
“I’d like you to read what I’ve presented before you accuse me of anything.”
For a second, her mask slipped. What I saw was colder than jealousy. Calculation. Then the smile was back.
“We’ll see.”
She left without another look at me. Lorenzo watched her go, his expression unreadable.
“Does that mean it’s approved?” Paola asked.
Luca opened the report to the budget.
“It means I want final costs and a legal review of the partnership with the foundation. The passage stays closed to the public.”
“Agreed,” I said.
“And nothing about my mother goes into the publicity.”
“Agreed on that too.”
He looked up.
“The garden will be restored.”
Sofia rested a hand on the landscape architect’s arm and smiled.
After the meeting, I found Luca alone in the corridor.
“Thank you.”
“It wasn’t a favor.”
“You stood up for my work.”
“Beatrice was wrong.”
“So were you this morning.”
He sighed.
“Don’t give me a hard time for making progress.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
For a moment, as he looked at me, the formality fell away.
“My mother liked the yellow roses best. Even when she insisted on showing me the white ones at night.”
I tucked that away carefully.
“Then there’ll be yellow ones.”
“Gabriela.”
“No publicity. No plaque. Just roses.”
“I want to choose the variety.”
I nodded.
“I’ll need a reference for the layout. You can choose which photographs we use.”
He looked surprised.
“We can do it together.”
“We can. I’ll make copies and give you back the originals.”
He nodded and started away, then stopped before turning the corner.
“Paola put the photographs aside in my office. I’ll come to the project room when I’m done here.”
Late that afternoon, he arrived with a box. Beside me, he opened it and took out two photographs of Elisabetta among yellow roses. In the others, I caught sight of a child by the fountain before he put them away.
I chose the image that showed the beds most clearly and scanned it. Luca watched how I framed it, then took back both photographs. The box went with him to his office. I printed the approved copy and took it to the garden to check the layout.
After putting the box away, Luca found me by the gate. We walked toward the passage. The narrow path kept him behind me, watching for low branches and uneven ground.
“Augusto used to say you took gardens apart to see how they were made.”
“I was eleven.”
“You were fifteen when you corrected the staircase in one of my plans over dinner.”
I stopped and turned.
“You’d forgotten access to the storage room.”
“Augusto reminded me for months.”
“Because you didn’t change the plan.”
He looked down and laughed.
“I did. After you left.”
I stared at him. For years, I’d remembered that dinner as another time no one had listened to me.
“You could have told me.”
“I could have.”
The path narrowed. I went ahead, holding a branch aside for him to pass.