Chapter 28
Less than a week later, everything starts to fall apart.
I stay up late one night working, writing the personal reflections for the recipes I created with Nonna.
Polenta Carbonara was the clear winner of the dishes we made this afternoon.
Rich with unctuous olive oil and three different local cheeses, this is the ultimate comfort food.
It’s a local specialty, and was Aurora’s favorite dish growing up.
I write about a humorous incident when I was six, helping Aurora grate the cheese for the dish and accidentally grating part of my thumb and having to start all over.
Then, reluctantly, I post the second-to-last segment for The Bygone Kitchen , a recipe for Easy Bread and Butter Refrigerator Pickles.
It makes me sad to see Drew with me on the screen.
I only have one final post left and then I’m going to have to come clean to our followers about the future of the show.
There won’t be any more segments to post. I’ll have to bid them farewell and go inactive.
I don’t see any way around it. I can’t do the show without Drew.
I spend a few minutes replying to dozens of comments from followers.
Turns out the peach pandowdy recipe was very popular.
Ethel loved it, commenting, “LIFE’S A PEACH!
” with an accompanying string of emojis including five peaches, a flamenco dancer, and three fire symbols.
I write back, “Thanks, Ethel!” and add about a dozen heart emojis in a variety of colors.
Even Marv liked the recipe. He rated it as “okay.” Which is high praise coming from him.
Right before bed, I close my computer and tiptoe to the kitchen for a snack.
It’s after ten, but the light is still on in Alex’s room when I pass by on my way downstairs.
At the foot of the stair I start to head to the kitchen but stop, catching the murmur of voices coming from the rarely used front part of the house.
Curious, I reverse course and head away from the kitchen and down the long hallway.
There are two voices and golden light spilling from the formal dining room.
This is strange. The door is open a crack, and I peer in to find Lorenzo and Nonna sitting at the long, heavy dining table, a thick black ledger and papers strewn around the tabletop and two empty espresso cups in front of them.
Lorenzo leans forward, his thick white eyebrows pinched together in concern. “Bruna, we cannot go on,” he says in Italian.
“It’s been bad before,” Nonna replies with a dismissive wave of her hand. “We’ll figure something out. We always do.” She sounds so weary. “Maybe there is something else we can sell? Anything of value left in the stables?”
Lorenzo shakes his head. “No. Nothing. We’ve sold everything we do not absolutely need.”
I shrink back in the shadows in the darkened hallway with a gasp.
I know I shouldn’t eavesdrop, but the concern tightening their voices makes the hair on the back of my neck prickle in alarm.
Something is very wrong. I have a feeling this is what they’ve been hiding from me.
And now here’s my chance to find out what is really happening.
I lean in a little to catch their conversation, concentrating hard to follow their rapid Italian.
“So we manage to pay this bill,” Lorenzo is saying.
“What then? There is always another bill, another tax, and the repairs on this place should have been done years ago. We’re slowly letting it fall down around our heads waiting for something that may never come.
” He sounds discouraged. I’ve never heard him sound defeated about anything in my life. It worries me.
“Something will work out,” Nonna tells him, placing her sturdy little hand over his big, work-worn one. “She could still decide to stay.”
My ears perk up. Who are they talking about?
Lorenzo shakes his head. “For what? What then? She stays but still there is no money to keep this place running. What do we have to offer her? There are so few jobs here for young people like Juliana.”
I freeze. They’re talking about me.
Lorenzo is still speaking. “We cannot saddle her with this place. It would be like giving her a problem to solve and no way to solve it. Bruna, together you and I have managed and struggled for so many years, but I think we need to be realistic. I think we need to consider selling.”
I cover my mouth with my hand, stifling a gasp. They’re thinking of selling the farm?
“Vicenzo told me last week they’re selling their farm to one of the big olive oil companies from the south,” Lorenzo says, his voice heavy.
“The price is fair, and the trees will be cared for, not cut down like some of those foreign investment buyers are doing, making room for hotels and holiday houses.”
“Never.” Nonna spits out the word, her voice rising as she speaks in rapid-fire Italian.
I struggle to keep up with her pace. “You will have to pry this place from my cold, dead hands. What are you saying, you cretino? This is our home, our family legacy. I will never stop fighting for it. You want one of those big farming companies to buy our farm? They may not cut down the trees, but they’ll cut out the heart of this home, this family.
This is our land, our history. If we don’t stand for it, it will be lost like so many others.
It’s happening all over Italy, even here around the lake.
You know as well as I do. We cannot let it happen to us.
We have to save it, not just for our family, but for our community, our legacy, for the future. It’s bigger than just us.”
Lorenzo spreads his hands. “I agree, but our plan is not going to work. We waited years for Juliana to come home, hoping that if she did she would see a future here, that those happy summers would be enough to draw her back, but I don’t see that happening.
She wants to save this show of hers, and she has a cookbook to write.
She has a different life, Bruna, one that is not here. ”
Nonna nods, toying with the handle of her espresso cup.
She frowns, making a deep furrow between her brows.
“You may be right,” she says finally. “But if not Juliana, then who? Who else is there? You and I have given our lives for this place, for this family and its legacy. But I’m old now.
You too, even if you want to ignore your creaking knees. ”
Lorenzo looks at her with weary resignation.
“Time is not on our side, Bruna,” he says gently.
“We can keep it going for a few more years, two or three if we’re lucky, but after that…
” He spreads his hands helplessly. “There is no one else. We must face the fact that without Juliana, this farm and its legacy will end.”
They go on to talk about the particulars of paying the upcoming tax and bills, shuffling papers and stacks of euros around the table, trying to make their meager savings stretch further than humanly possible.
I slowly back away, feeling heartsick. In the dark warmth of the kitchen I pour myself a glass of water and drink it standing at the sink, looking out at the olive trees, silent and silver in the moonlight.
My hands are trembling so much I have trouble bringing the glass to my lips.
My mind is racing and I’m stunned by what I’ve just heard.
It’s true. What Nicolo told me is true. They’ve been waiting for me to come back, hoping I’ll stay and save the farm.
The weight of their hopes and expectations feels suffocating.
I didn’t come back to stay. I came back to get what I needed and go on with my life’s plan.
“This is only for the summer,” I murmur aloud. “It has always only been for the summer.”
It breaks my heart to hear the resignation in Nonna’s voice, her weariness. The realization that we might lose the farm hits me like a punch in the gut. It has been in our family for generations. Who are we without it? Who am I?
Standing at the sink in the darkness that still smells like the cheesy polenta I made for dinner, I realize for the first time just how much this place truly means to me.
It has always been the center of my universe.
To think of losing it feels like losing gravity itself.
I would spin out into space, lost and unmoored. It is unthinkable.
Yet what is the alternative? I stay and try to save the farm?
The thought curdles my stomach with anxiety.
What do I know about olive farming or keeping up a property that is hundreds of years old?
Next to nothing. I have no savings, no income, very little skill outside of the kitchen, and limited Italian.
I’m not the right one to do this. I can’t do this.
I will almost certainly fail, and the loss of our homeland and generations of our history will rest firmly on my shoulders.
But if not me, then who? With sudden cold clarity I see the choice before me.
If I stay and try to rescue the farm from financial ruin, I give up all hope of saving my show and resign myself to almost certain failure.
If I go back to Seattle and try to save the show with Drew, I ensure we will lose our land and home, and bid farewell to the heart and legacy of our family.
It feels like there is no way to win. How can I possibly choose?