1. Chiara #2
I look at him in the fading light. My husband. The man I came across a sea for, who spends more time with ledgers and vineyard managers than with me. Who I have shared a bed with for two years and still do not fully know.
“I’m trying.” I keep my hand in his, although part of me wants to pull away before I say too much. “It’s harder than I expected.”
He nods slowly, and something shifts in his expression. Regret, maybe. Recognition.
“There’s a wine in the old cellar I haven’t shown you.” He looks toward the house, where the cellar windows sit low against the courtyard stones. “My father’s last project.”
I wait, sensing that he needs to say this in his own time.
“He spent years working on that blend.” Lorenzo starts moving again, slowly enough for me to follow. “It’s been aging down there while we’ve brought in the newer harvests. We’re finally releasing it in three months.”
I think of Don Cesare, who died before I arrived, whose portrait hangs in the main hall with eyes that look exactly like Lorenzo’s. I have heard stories. A demanding man, a brilliant vintner.
A father whose shadow still falls across every decision Lorenzo makes.
“That’s why you’ve been so…” I remember the light under his study door long after midnight, the suppers he forgets. “Preoccupied. The weight of it.”
“The entire estate’s reputation rests on this launch. If it succeeds, we secure our place among the great Sicilian vintages. If it fails…” He looks toward the cellar windows again. I understand why the date matters; I wish it did not have to take up every part of him.
I understand this, the terror of having everything depend on a single moment.
I remember the night before my first big market, lying awake convinced that no one would buy my teas, that I would be exposed as a fraud. The relief when the first customer smiled, the slow realization that I actually knew what I was doing.
“I could help.” I stop worrying about where to put my feet. This, at least, is something I know how to do. “With the launch.”
“Help how?” Lorenzo turns fully toward me. I have his attention now, and I refuse to lose it by apologizing for offering.
“The presentation. The story you tell about the wine.” The ideas are forming as I speak, excitement building in my chest. “I built a brand from nothing. I know how to make people care about a product, how to explain why something matters. Your father’s legacy, the years of careful aging, the connection to the land. That’s a story worth telling well.”
He is quiet for a long moment, and I brace myself for dismissal. For the polite deflection I have come to expect, the gentle reminder that the estate’s business is not my concern.
“You’re serious.” He turns back from the house to face me, giving the offer the attention I was afraid he would dismiss.
“Completely.” I resist the urge to soften it with a joke. I have made a real offer; he can give me a real answer.
“You have experience presenting something like that?” His hand is still in mine, but his attention has changed. He is listening as though my answer might be useful.
“Three years of convincing skeptical farmers’ market customers that chamomile tea was worth twice what they paid at the grocery store.” I remember a customer who used to bring her own supermarket box for comparison. “Wine buyers cannot be harder to persuade than retired French schoolteachers.”
He laughs, that startled sound again, and I file it away with the other rare moments. The collection is growing tonight.
“Maybe you can.” He draws me away from the rough edge of the vat before my ankle catches it. “When we get closer to the launch, we’ll discuss it.”
I would rather have a yes, but I can work with a maybe if he means it. Tonight, with his hand still holding mine, I let myself believe he does.
We stand there as the last of the light fades, ankle-deep in crushed grapes, our hands still intertwined. Lorenzo’s face is soft in the dusk, and when he looks at me I feel, for the first time since I arrived in Sicily, like I might actually be seen.
“So. End of the evening.” He guides me toward the steps, taking care with the slippery footing. “Do you regret it?”
I consider the question. The ache of leaving Lyon. The loneliness of this beautiful, foreign place. The cold dinners and empty conversations and the endless feeling of being outside looking in.
But also this. The warmth of his hand. The sound of his laugh. The way he asked about my tea brand like he actually cared.
“Not tonight.” I tighten my grip on his hand and follow him toward the edge. I mean it, and I want him to know that I mean it.
Something flickers in his eyes. Relief, maybe. Or hope.
He squeezes my fingers once, then releases them, and we climb out of the vat together, our legs stained purple to the knee, the first stars appearing above the vineyard.
By the time we have rinsed our feet and found our shoes, I am tired and happy and slightly sticky with grape juice. Lorenzo walks beside me toward the house. I am still thinking about the way he laughed, and for once I have no urge to fill the silence between us.
***
Present Day
The sheets on Lorenzo’s side of the bed are cold.
I reach for them before I am fully awake, my hand searching for warmth that is not there. A habit I cannot seem to break, even after months of finding nothing. The winter light through the window is pale, and somewhere in the house I can hear the staff beginning their morning routines.
It has been three months since the pigiatura. I have waited for Lorenzo to mention the launch offer again, even left my old product notebook on the bedside table where he could see it. He has not asked about it, and I am tired of hoping he will notice a notebook when he barely notices me.
The launch is two weeks away now. I know because I hear the staff talking, catch fragments of conversation about press lists and venue preparations and the ceremonial uncorking. The entire estate is preparing for the most important event in a generation, and I have not been consulted once.
I lie there for a moment, staring at the painted ceiling with its faded frescoes, and I think about what kind of person I want to be. The kind who waits politely for permission that never comes, or the kind who asks for what she was promised.
Then I get out of bed.
Rosalia is in the breakfast room when I come down, straightening linens that do not need straightening. She looks up with a warm smile that is the only real welcome I receive in this house.
“Signora, good morning.” She pulls out the chair beside the window, the one I prefer, although no place has been laid there. “Can I bring you something? There’s fresh bread, and the cook made that fig preserve you like.”
I pour myself coffee from the sideboard, and Rosalia moves around the table, adjusting and readjusting. She is nervous about something, I can tell. Her hands are too busy.
“Rosalia.” I take a sip and watch her over the rim. “What’s happening with the launch preparations? I’ve been hearing conversations, but no one tells me anything directly.”
“The launch, signora?” Rosalia lowers the folded napkin onto my plate. She has already heard something, then. I wish she did not have to worry about being the person who tells me.
“Don Cesare’s vintage. The release is in two weeks.” I glance at the empty place across from mine. Another question I should have been able to ask my husband over breakfast. “Someone must be organizing the event.”
“I believe…” She checks the open door before answering. “I believe the Don has been working with Signorina Livia on the arrangements. She knows the cellars so well, and the wine itself, and…”
She trails off. She does not need to finish.
Livia.
Of course it is Livia.
Lorenzo’s childhood friend, the girl who grew up in the village and spent her youth learning every barrel and blend in the Marchetti cellars. Livia, who looks at me across rooms with cool assessment and never quite hostility but something close. Livia, who belongs here in a way I never will.
“Do you know where the Don is this morning?” I pull the bread plate toward me. If I am going to ask him for an answer, I will at least do it after eating.
“The cellars, I think.” Rosalia puts the preserve within reach, letting the spoon rest across its saucer. “He’s been spending most of his time there, with the preparations.”
I finish a piece of bread while she brings a clean cup for the next place setting. Then I set down my coffee. “Thank you, Rosalia.”
She watches me with something like concern as I leave. I do not blame her. I am concerned too.
But I am also done waiting.
***
The cellars stretch beneath the main house. The air cools as I descend, carrying the smell of oak and damp stone. I have never learned to navigate them properly.
Every time I come down here, I feel like an intruder, picking my way through Lorenzo’s domain. But I keep walking.
I find them in the main aging chamber, surrounded by barrels marked with dates I cannot read from the doorway.
Lorenzo stands with his back to me, his head bent over a ledger, while Livia gestures at something on the page. They speak quickly, slipping between Italian and Sicilian. I have to listen closely when their words run together.
I wait for them to notice me. They don’t.
“These are too many bottles for the first table.” Livia runs her finger down the page between them. “If the buyers arrive late, we’ll have opened them for nothing.”
“Then we open them as they arrive.” Lorenzo turns the ledger so he can follow the column she means. “The first table needs to be ready. My father waited long enough for this launch.”
“With respect, Don Lorenzo, your father never had to keep journalists waiting for photographs.” She takes the pencil from beside his hand and marks the margin as though she has done it a thousand times.
“Put extra glasses there, then.” He leaves the pencil with her. “We can change the order if we need to.”
I clear my throat.