7. Lorenzo
— ? —
Lorenzo
The cottage is cold when I arrive, and I don’t bother lighting the fire.
On the second morning after the gala, I leave the house before breakfast. My phone hasn’t stopped ringing, and every conversation seems easier than the one I need to have with my wife.
Yesterday she went to the market and came back with stories of people turning their backs, of an old man spitting at her feet, and I reached for my phone.
Find out who threatened her. Make sure she has a driver.
I could do those things without asking her to describe the humiliation again.
I draw back my father’s chair and sit behind his desk. The papers are where I left them on my last visit, an old set of wine records open beneath the lamp. The photograph on the mantel watches me the way it always does, and I find myself looking back this time instead of avoiding his eyes.
What would you do?
The question is useless. He’s been dead for years. But I ask it anyway, the way I’ve been asking it since I was old enough to realize that being a Marchetti meant carrying weight I never asked for.
Protect what’s yours. Handle problems quietly. Never show weakness.
I learned those lessons at this desk, watching him manage crises with a steady hand and a closed expression. He made it look easy. He made it look like strength was simply a matter of deciding to be strong, and everything else would fall into place.
Through the window, the lemon trees stir in the wind, their leaves still green. I have come here to work through a problem before. Usually the quiet helps. Today I keep hearing Chiara ask whether I believe she did it.
His letter is back in the main-house study, folded among the records I was reading last week. I don’t need it in front of me to remember the words: When you marry, choose your wife. Every time, especially when it’s hard. The estate can survive anything except a divided house.
He wrote that while he was dying, full of regret for how he’d treated my mother. The man who taught me that silence was strength spent his last weeks trying to tell me he’d been wrong.
I have kept the letter, handled it often enough to soften the folds, and never found a way to reconcile it with the man who wrote it. He had a lifetime to learn how to speak to my mother. Why leave the correction until he could no longer use it himself?
Protect what’s yours.
I close the wine records without reading the next page.
The problem is that I don’t know how to protect all of it at once.
***
The investigators arrive at the main house by midmorning, earlier than I expected. I meet them in my study with the door closed, grateful for something concrete to focus on instead of the weight sitting in my chest.
There are two of them: a man with gray at his temples whose name is Ferro, and a younger woman called Mancini who takes notes with quiet efficiency. I hired them from Palermo specifically because they have no connection to the valley or its gossip.
Whatever they find, it won’t be colored by decades of loyalty or resentment.
Mancini spreads documents across my desk while Ferro summarizes their findings. His voice is measured, professional, entirely without drama.
“The contamination was deliberate.” Ferro opens the report at its conclusion and turns it toward me. “The laboratory found a foreign substance. Taken with the handling checks and the pattern in the affected bottles, the findings point to intentional interference.”
I knew this already. The sommelier suspected as much the night of the gala. But hearing it stated with the weight of professional analysis behind it makes my jaw tighten.
“The botanical materials from Signora Marchetti’s presentation were examined separately,” Mancini adds, turning to a specific page in her notes.
“None of them match the contaminating substance. The contents of her display jars were checked against the findings. There’s no physical connection between her presentation and the affected wine. ”
Of course there isn’t. I watched my wife’s face when that wine poured wrong, watched the triumph drain into horror in the span of a heartbeat. She worked too hard for this launch, cared too much about proving herself, to destroy it with her own hands.
“Can you determine when the contamination occurred?” I leave the conclusion in front of me, where I can read it again if I need to. A written finding should make the next part easier.
“Not with precision.” Ferro consults his own notes. “The analysis identifies what was introduced, not when. We need to review how the bottles were handled before and after they were selected for the launch. The date they were set aside doesn’t tell us when they were contaminated.”
“So we still need to establish who could have reached them.” I put my hand on the report to stop myself turning ahead to the names.
“The evidence points to interference during cellar storage or preparation.” Mancini slides a paper across the desk. “We’ve compiled a list based on the records you provided, cross-referenced with the sommelier’s handling documentation.”
I scan the names, recognizing all of them. The cellar team who work there daily. The sommelier who conducted tastings. My own name, because I checked on preparations. And near the top of the list, with a notation about supervisory access, Livia.
“We spoke with each individual on this list yesterday.” Ferro watches my face as he says it. “Including the cellar steward.”
Livia told me about the questions last night. I assured her that everyone was being asked. That was true. I had asked these two to follow the work back through the people responsible for it.
“The cellar steward had extensive access during the relevant period.” Mancini points to the notation beside Livia’s name. “She was responsible for supervising the work in that area. She had full authority over the handling of the service batch.”
“That’s her job.” I set the paper down carefully, keeping my voice even. “Being present doesn’t prove anything.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Ferro meets my eyes directly. “But access and opportunity are the foundation of any investigation. Her supervisory role and the reports of tension around the launch give us questions we still need to ask.”
Tension. That’s one word for it. Chiara has been telling me for weeks that something was wrong, that Livia was working against her, that the whispers in the village weren’t coincidence. I listened, and I took notes, and I told her I would look into it.
And then I watched Livia cry in the parlor last night and promised to handle my wife.
My thumb has creased the report. I smooth it against the desk.
Do you love her?
I wish she hadn’t asked me that.
Livia had been my friend long before anyone started discussing marriages. We grew up together without our families having to decide we would suit. By the time Chiara arrived, I had years of friendship with one woman and wedding arrangements with the other.
That part was easy to explain.
But on the boat, Chiara kept pretending to admire the shoreline when I caught her looking at me. She couldn’t quite stop smiling. I wanted her to look again, and when she did, I forgot what I’d been about to say.
I could have taken her back earlier. Instead, I kept finding reasons to stay.
My wedding ring turns beneath my thumb.
Wanting to kiss her has never been difficult to understand. This is harder. Yesterday, while she stood across my desk, I wanted to put the papers aside and ask whether she could still enjoy an afternoon with me. Whether she’d let me take her out on the lake again.
She was asking me to believe her. I knew better than to ask her to make me feel wanted.
I’ve never needed that from a woman this badly. It unsettles me, how much I care whether she stays after a conversation is finished, whether she reaches for my hand without waiting for mine.
I think I love her.
My fingers stop on the ring.
Even here, without having to say it aloud, I want to qualify it. Perhaps I’m tired. Perhaps the thought of losing her attention has made me want it more.
Except I wanted it before the gala. I wanted it while she was smiling at me on that boat.
I lower my eyes to the report. I’ve never felt this before, and now that I’m beginning to understand it, I don’t know what to do. How do I tell my wife I’m only just finding words for feelings she has been asking me about for months?
Mancini moves a page beside the list of names.
I straighten in my chair. The wine was sabotaged. People are blaming Chiara, and the investigators are sitting across from me waiting to discuss what they found.
I need to deal with this first. I can work out what to say to her when I have answers to bring with it. I slide the report closer and turn back to Mancini.
“The interview yesterday was preliminary.” Mancini puts a second sheet beside the list, with the follow-up conversations she wants to arrange. “We recommend speaking to her again after reviewing the records.”
“Remove her from the active list.” I slide the proposed interviews back across the desk. Both investigators stop moving, and I hear how final I have made it sound.
“Don Lorenzo.” Mancini leaves her notebook open instead of making the change. “Based on our analysis, the cellar steward represents one of the strongest persons of interest. Removing her from active consideration would significantly compromise the investigation’s integrity.”
“I understand.” I don’t look at the paper with Livia’s name on it. “Remove her anyway.”
What happens to Livia if these questions become the valley’s next story? I have seen how quickly people stop asking and start repeating. I tell myself I am preventing another careless accusation, not refusing to consider one.
“May I ask why?” Ferro puts his pen beside the proposed interviews. He is waiting for something he can record, and childhood loyalty will look thin written down.