16. Valentin #2
“The honey man will be there. Odette said.”
“Then we’ll find him together.”
“Okay.” Her voice is getting sleepier. “Daddy?”
“Yes, piccola?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too. So much. Now go to sleep.”
“Okay. Night night.”
“Goodnight, sweetheart.”
The call ends. I sit in the dark bedroom, listening to the silence, holding onto the sound of her voice.
I get dressed and open the notes on my phone. Before I let anyone put a camera in front of me, Solenne will know what I intend to say.
***
Delfina is already in the kitchen when I come down at six, standing at the stove with a kettle beginning to steam. Light is just starting to gray the windows.
“I heard the phone,” she says. “Multiple times.”
“There’s an article. About Solenne. It’s bad.”
“Show me.”
I hand her my phone with the headline pulled up. She reads it slowly, her face hardening as she scrolls.
“Sources close to the family,” she says it flatly. “We both know who that means.”
“My mother. And probably Ginevra feeding her details.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Release the footage. Give an interview correcting the record.” I take a breath. “I need your account, Delfina. In your own words. What you saw that day, what my mother said afterward.”
She sets the phone down and pours hot water into a pot. “Sit. I’ll make tea while we talk.”
I sit at the small table by the window. She brings two cups and settles into the chair across from me, moving carefully.
“What do you need me to say?”
“The truth. What happened in the sitting room, what my mother threatened afterward. I’m not going to tell you what words to use. Your account should be yours.”
She wraps her hands around her cup. “The Signorina Solano was already in the room with your wife when I arrived. I came because of Teresa, because of the bracelet accusation. I heard Signorina Solano say things to your wife. That she was an outsider. That you only married her because she trapped you.”
“And then?”
“I stepped in. Said Teresa didn’t steal the bracelet, that Signorina Solano had no right to make accusations.
That’s when she shoved me. Hard, with both hands.
I hit the doorframe, then the edge of the table.
” Her voice is steady. “Your wife stepped between us. When Signorina Solano tried to reach past her, your wife pushed her away.”
“And afterward? When my mother arrived?”
“She took your wife to the study. I don’t know what was said there. But later she came to me separately. Told me I would lose my position if I contradicted the story she’d given you. Teresa too, and anyone else who might be tempted to speak up.”
“She threatened your job to keep you quiet.”
“She did.”
I look at her, this woman who has worked in this house for decades, who knew me before I knew myself. “I’m sorry. That you were put in that position. That I didn’t ask you directly what happened until it was too late.”
She turns her cup on its saucer. “I kept listening for you to ask me. That night, before the fiesta. You walked through the kitchen, and I thought, now. But you went straight upstairs.”
I don’t remember walking through. That makes it worse.
“I should have stopped,” I say.
“Yes.” She leaves the word there.
“There’s one more thing. The journalist will want your statement in writing, authenticated. Your name will be attached to it publicly. Are you willing to do that?”
“I was afraid to speak in March. I told you why when the Signora left. I don’t want to be afraid of your mother anymore.”
“And Teresa? The bracelet accusation is part of this, tangentially. I don’t want her dragged into it if she’d rather stay out.”
Delfina nods slowly. “I’ll speak for what I saw and heard. Teresa’s name doesn’t need to be in it. The accusation was withdrawn. That should be the end of it for her.”
“Thank you.”
She finishes her tea and stands. “I’ll write down what I told you. In my own words, like you said. You can give it to whoever needs it.”
At the doorway, she turns back. “Don’t call me a poor old woman in your interview.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good. I was standing up for someone. That’s why she pushed me.”
“I’ll remember.”
She takes a clean sheet of paper from the drawer beside the telephone and goes to write her account.
I sit alone in the kitchen, watching the light strengthen outside the window. Elena will be awake by now. I should call her, set up the interview, start the process of undoing what my mother has done.
But first, one more call.
I find my mother’s number and dial.
She answers on the third ring, her voice composed despite the hour. “Valentin. I wondered when you would call.”
“You gave an interview.”
“I answered questions. There’s a difference.”
“Questions about my wife. Questions designed to make her look unstable.”
“I told the truth as I saw it.” Her voice sharpens slightly. “Your wife made this family look foolish. She attacked a guest in our home and then fled to America with your daughter. People asked what happened, and I answered.”
“You lied. Ginevra attacked Delfina first. Solenne was protecting her.”
“That’s your wife’s version.”
“It’s the version on the security footage. Which I’m releasing today.”
Silence. When she speaks again, her voice is colder. “You would expose family matters to the press? After everything I’ve done to protect this family’s reputation?”
“You haven’t been protecting this family. You’ve been protecting yourself.” I keep my voice steady. “The footage shows what happened. Delfina has given her account. I’m going on camera this afternoon to correct the lies you’ve been spreading.”
“And what about me? What about my position?”
“You lost that when you chose to attack my wife in public. The boundaries I set in April still stand. You’re not welcome at the villa. You’re not welcome in my life. What happened here is going on the record, including what you told Delfina after the incident.”
“Valentin…”
“Goodbye, Mother.”
I hang up and set the phone on the table.
Outside, the sun is fully up now, casting long shadows across the garden. I can hear the household stirring, the ordinary sounds of a day beginning.
At eight, Elena calls back. By then Delfina has finished writing, and Solenne has read my notes. Her last message is brief: Yes. Tell them.
Elena asks to speak to Delfina directly. I give them the kitchen and take my coffee outside. Through the open door I hear Delfina begin again, in the same steady voice she used with me. This time I don’t interrupt.
***
The interview happens at one in the afternoon, in my father’s study with the bookshelves visible behind me. Elena’s camera crew sets up quickly, positioning lights to soften the harsh Mediterranean sun coming through the windows.
“Just tell me what happened,” Elena says, sitting across from me off-camera. “In your own words. We’ll edit for length, but I want your natural account.”
I take a breath and begin.
“In late March, there was an incident at my home in Sicily. Ginevra Solano, a guest of my mother’s, physically attacked a member of our household staff.
My wife intervened to protect her. The version of events that has been circulating, the version in this morning’s headline, claims that my wife attacked Ginevra unprovoked. That is false.”
“How do you know?”
“Delfina told me what happened. The recording confirmed her account. Ginevra shoves her into the doorframe. My wife steps between them and pushes Ginevra away when she tries to reach her again.”
“And your wife told you this?”
“She tried. That evening. I interrupted her because I had already accepted my mother’s version.”
Elena waits. I hear the small click of someone adjusting the camera, and for a second I want her to ask a different question.
“Solenne should not have needed a recording to be heard by her own husband,” I say.
“Why is this footage only coming out now?”
I pause. This is the part I’ve been dreading. The part where I have to admit what I did wrong.
“Because I made a mistake. When my wife left Sicily in early April, I learned the truth about what happened. I removed my mother and Ginevra from my household. I gave a statement to the local paper correcting false impressions from other photographs. I thought that would be enough.” I look directly at the camera.
“It wasn’t. By keeping the full truth private, by treating this as a family matter rather than a public lie, I let my wife carry the burden of a false narrative alone.
People have been attacking her reputation for weeks while I stayed silent about what actually happened. ”
“What do you want to say now?”
“Solenne did not abandon her family. She left a house where my mother was working to make her feel unwelcome, and where I kept asking her to endure it. I let that happen.” I take a breath.
“She is the best thing that ever happened to my family. I should have stood beside her while she was still here, trying to tell me she was unhappy.”
“Your mother denies there was an effort to silence the staff,” Elena says.
“Costanza Caruso told Delfina she would lose her job if she contradicted the story. Delfina has given you that account herself. There’s no audio on the recording, and my mother arrived after the confrontation. Those are separate facts. I won’t pretend the camera shows something it doesn’t.”
“Have you spoken to your mother about today’s article?”
“This morning. She confirmed she answered questions. I don’t know who else spoke to them.”
When the camera stops rolling, Elena thanks me and says the piece will go live by midnight.
“The footage will be included?”
“With Delfina’s statement and the timestamp. It’s clear, Valentin. Anyone who watches it will understand.”
I walk her and the crew to the door.
“One more thing,” she says. “Your daughter. You mentioned she’s four?”
“She stays out of this completely. Her name, her face, anything about her. Non-negotiable.”
“Understood.”