2. Chiara #3
“Then she can tell me what she’s worried about.” I have left space for exactly that in the notebook on my knees: cellar requirements, questions, anything I need to take into account. “She can point to a problem in my plans. What am I supposed to do with a complaint about where I grew up?”
“She’s been working on this launch for weeks.” He moves the papers again, although they are already clear of the space between us. “She had expectations about her role, and then everything changed. Can you blame her for needing time to adjust?”
A change in plans has inconvenienced her. I have spent two years trying to find useful work here. Why is her disappointment the one he can explain without being asked?
“She can be disappointed without telling people I’m incompetent.” I set my palm on the closed ledger, holding it steady while I make myself finish. “If she said it, I want you to tell her to stop. I shouldn’t have to prove that insulting me will hurt the launch before it matters to you.”
He’s quiet again, and I can see him wrestling with something.
The loyalty he owes Livia, built over decades. The obligation he owes me, built over marriage vows and shared breakfasts and the complicated arithmetic of being bound to someone you didn’t choose.
“I’ll talk to them.” He meets my eyes, and I see the exhaustion there, the weight of trying to manage too many competing demands. “The staff, the people involved in the launch. I’ll make sure everyone understands that you have my full support.”
“Will you talk to Livia specifically?” I wait until he looks away from the papers. He knows whose words I came here to discuss. “Ask what happened. If she has a concern about my plans, she can bring it to me.”
“I’ll handle it.” He picks up his pen again, a gesture that usually signals the end of a conversation. “You don’t need to worry about this.”
But he hasn’t said yes.
He hasn’t committed to the specific conversation I asked for, the direct word with Livia that might actually change her behavior. He’s offered a vague promise to talk to them, a gesture that could mean anything or nothing.
I consider pushing harder. Demanding specifics, a timeline, some assurance that he won’t just let this slide.
I have asked him directly. Repeating myself until he agrees just to end the conversation will not tell me anything useful. Whether he speaks to Livia now will.
“I have the event requirements to finalize.” I stand with the books against my side, keeping one finger between the pages I need. “Livia said she’d review my list tomorrow, so I need to have it ready.”
“Good.” His attention drops to the ledger I am holding, and he starts reaching for the papers again. “Let me know if you need anything.”
The offer is automatic, the kind of thing a husband says to a wife without really thinking about it. I doubt he means anything beyond the words themselves.
“There is one thing.” I pause at the door, my hand on the frame.
“The first pour. At breakfast you said Livia handles the wine preparation and I decide how the event runs. I need the service instructions to say that too. The people helping on the night won’t all have been at breakfast. I can’t have them looking for two different approvals whenever a table needs moving. ”
“That’s fair.” He draws a sheet out of the pile in front of him and writes a note. “I’ll make sure everyone understands who decides what.”
It’s not everything I wanted. It’s not even close to everything I needed. But it’s a specific commitment, something I can point to later if those boundaries get blurred.
“Thank you.” I watch him finish the note, relieved to have something concrete even if it is smaller than what I asked for. “And I still need an answer about the conversation in the village.”
Something crosses his face, too quick to identify. Guilt, maybe. Or the uncomfortable recognition that he has put me in an impossible position without meaning to.
“You’ll do well.” His voice softens slightly, and for a moment he sounds like the man who stood in a grape vat with me three months ago. “You’re more capable than you think you are.”
The compliment lands strangely. More capable than I think I am. As if my confidence is the problem, rather than the report that his childhood friend is working against me, a report he is already explaining away without asking her about it.
“I know exactly how capable I am.” I shift the ledger higher against my ribs. Yesterday I had to explain my experience to get it into my hands. I will not start that argument again. “That’s never been the question.”
I leave his study with my head high and my steps even, wishing he had answered the question instead of complimenting me.
He gave me the launch, and this morning he confirmed my authority in front of the staff. I will not pretend those things did not happen.
But he still found a reason to excuse Livia before he had even spoken to her.
I have work to do. I have a launch to plan and a village to win over and a cellar steward who smiles at me like she knows something I don’t.
And I have a husband who says he will talk to them.
I wish I knew what that meant.
***
I measure the space beside the cellar entrance before going upstairs. The table will fit in the alcove. I record the width, then sketch a serving route so the cellar team will not have to push through waiting guests.
In my room, I spread Lorenzo’s ledger and my new notebook across the small desk. Thirteen days to make people care about a wine I have never tasted, made by a man I never met, for an estate that still doesn’t feel like home.
The existing plans are thorough, I’ll give Livia that. Tables, linens, stemware, a tasting sequence from lightest to most complex, technical cards for the journalists. I leave the bookings in place. They don’t need replacing just because she made them. I need to give people something to remember.
I note questions about Cesare. His years perfecting a single blend, refusing to release it before it was ready. Lorenzo carrying that responsibility after his death, aging the wine with the patience his father taught him.
At the top of the page, I write: Why this wine?
Underneath, I leave room for Lorenzo’s answer. I can make the room beautiful and the service run smoothly, but I need to understand what his father wanted people to taste.
By the time the light fades, I have cellar requirements for Livia and questions for Lorenzo. My eyes ache, my shoulders are stiff, but I have the beginnings of something that might work.
After a late supper in the kitchen, I return to check delivery dates. Thirteen days. Enough, provided I can spend them working instead of defending my right to be here.
There has been no further word from Lorenzo about Livia.
By the following dawn, I am awake and rehearsing yesterday’s argument, so I dress in my old work clothes before I can make myself angry all over again.
Outside the kitchen passage, my breath clouds in the cold. The sky is just beginning to lighten as I carry my lamp toward the beds.
Checking the plants and pulling weeds from the lavender settles me. Here, I can see what my effort has done.
The sage is thriving. The rosemary has new growth despite the cold, and the thyme is slowly knitting together. Its bare patch is smaller than last month. I pull a weed from the gap and sit back on my heels.
Progress. I can trust this kind.
I am crouched beside the jasmine, checking the soil, when footsteps approach from the main courtyard. Lorenzo’s pace. I recognize it before I see him.
There is still time to let him find me working. But I am tired of explaining what I know how to do, and this is the one part of the estate where I have not needed him to agree first.
I lower the wick until the flame dies and slip into the narrow gap between the stone wall and the old potting shed, holding my lamp and tools close. Cold stone presses through my sweater.
The footsteps stop.
Through the gap, I make out Lorenzo’s profile against the brightening sky. His coat is open despite the cold.
He slows beside the lavender, studying its silver-green leaves, then crouches to run his fingers along a rosemary stem I pruned three weeks ago.
Does he remember how it looked before?
He moves past the herb spiral I rebuilt and the thyme, looking at everything. Then he stops at the winter jasmine.
Since autumn, I have been nursing it back from the damage I found it in. Now it has a few small yellow flowers. Lorenzo brushes one with his fingertip, and the tenderness of it catches me off guard.
He is touching something I saved. He doesn’t know.
For a long moment, he stays there, his face soft in the early light. No glance at his watch or toward the cellars. He has time, apparently, to stop and enjoy something.
Then his hand falls, and he walks on toward the vineyard.
I stay behind the shed until his footsteps fade, my eyes stinging. I want, absurdly, to call him back. To tell him how long I worked to get that jasmine healthy enough to bloom.
He noticed the flowers and he stopped for them.
How I wish I knew what it took for him to do that for me.