Chapter 38
“How did you know we were in here?” Nicolo asks his grandmother after we’ve waited like schoolchildren in the principal’s office for ten minutes, all three of us sitting in complete silence.
Violetta gestures dismissively to the dog.
“Argo heard you. He was going crazy and I finally came to see what all the fuss was about. I missed the ending of my show for this nonsense. Now I don’t know who killed the librarian.
” She looks annoyed but pats Argo on the head. He licks her hand adoringly.
More long minutes pass until I hear familiar footsteps in the hall. Nonna pokes her head in the door and sees us and Violetta. Her expression is one of puzzled exasperation.
“Madonna Santa, what is going on here?” she demands in English, coming into the room. She stands in the doorway and surveys us, clutching her black leather pocketbook to her chest. She’s put on fresh lipstick, I notice, and pantyhose.
“I caught these two breaking into my safe,” Violetta explains stiffly in Italian.
Nonna’s eyes widen. She looks between us, then clucks her tongue and shakes her head. “Always getting into mischief, the two of you.”
“We were just trying to get the other half of the Orange Blossom Cake recipe back,” I protest.
Nonna looks astonished. “The recipe?” she asks. “You were breaking in to get the recipe? But why?”
“Well, because…” I squirm in the hideously uncomfortable chair. “Because it seems important to you, and I figured if we got the complete recipe, I could try it. I want to see the happiest moment of my life.”
“The girl claims you told her your life was ruined because you only had half the recipe.” Violetta’s dry tone is somehow both demeaning and a touch accusing. I bristle at being called “the girl.”
Nonna squares her shoulders. Violetta is head and shoulders taller than Nonna, but in a cage match, my money would be on Nonna. She’s scrappy. “Juliana misunderstood me,” she says coldly. “It was not the recipe that ruined my life. It was you, your betrayal when you stole Alberto from me.”
Nicolo and I exchange a scandalized look. I feel like I’m watching a real live soap opera. Alberto, as in Violetta’s dead husband? This is getting juicy.
Violetta scoffs. “What are you talking about?”
Nonna rears back. “Don’t deny it. You stole my fiancé two months before our wedding!” she retorts hotly. “You were my best friend, like a sister to me, until you snatched the man I loved right out from under my nose.”
Violetta has the grace to look discomfited. Her eyes dart away from Nonna. “You should thank me,” she mutters.
Nonna huffs in outrage. She puts her hands on the desk and leans toward Violetta.
“Thank you? I should thank you? You ruined my life without so much as an explanation or apology. You broke my heart twice over, first by stealing Alberto from me and again with your silence. And then I had to stand by for all these years and watch you prosper with Alberto, watch your farm flourish while Carlo and I struggled.” She thumps a fist on the desk, her expression angry.
“You took the things that should have been mine, the life that should have been mine. Don’t deny it. ”
Something flickers in Violetta’s eyes. I see her hesitate. “What does this have to do with the recipe?” she asks coldly, neatly changing the subject.
“You have it, don’t you?” I interject.
Violetta glances briefly in my direction. “That recipe has no bearing on anything. It is a silly old family story. It means nothing.”
“Then give it back to us.”
“Fine.” She flicks her hand dismissively, then stands and rummages in the safe for a moment. The room is quiet. Finally, she pulls out a yellowed envelope and throws it on the desk. “There, take it. I have no use for it. I never have.”
“Whose fault is that?” Nonna replies quietly, her expression steely.
Violetta gives her a hard look, then sits down with a sigh.
“You understand nothing,” she says, sounding suddenly weary.
Nonna straightens her shoulders. “I understand true friendship,” she retorts.
“And what you did was unforgivable. Do you remember, Vi, how excited we were when the cookbook showed us the recipe when we opened it one day? How we longed to see our moment of happiness? We decided to take a bite of the cake at the exact same time so we could both see what the future held for us.” She glances at Nicolo and me and explains, “That’s why we tore half the page out of the cookbook when it showed us the recipe.
We wanted to wait and make the cake together on my eighteenth birthday.
We tore the recipe in half because we did not want either of us to be tempted to cheat and make the cake too early.
We made a promise to wait and make it together. That was the plan.”
“Plans change,” Violetta said bluntly. “By the time our birthdays rolled around, it was too late. I didn’t need the cake. I could see my future laid out in front of me already, and there was no point in trying to see any future happiness. It was already too late for me.”
Nonna looks puzzled. Nicolo too.
“What do you mean it was too late?” Nonna asks slowly.
Violetta looks at her, her jaw working for a moment. “I was pregnant,” she says finally, bluntly. “And Alberto was the father of my baby.”
Nonna gasps and puts her hand to her chest. My jaw drops.
This is a soap opera. I glance at Nicolo, who is staring at his grandmother in complete shock.
The baby Violetta is talking about would be Nicolo’s mother, Alberto and Violetta’s only child.
I scoot forward in the chair, hanging on every word.
“No,” Nonna protests. “Alberto would never have…”
Violetta utters a grim little laugh. “Oh, you are sadly mistaken, Bruna. Alberto did…with me and with many other women, before and after our wedding. I found out too late what sort of man he was. With me, it was just once. The night of the May Day festival. You stayed home with a headache and asked Alberto to take me to the festival instead. By the end of the night we’d both had too much cheap wine.
We took a little drive along the lake and stopped to look at the moon.
One thing led to another. We made a terrible choice.
” She waved a hand dismissively. “A few weeks later I found I was with child and unmarried, and the father of my baby was my best friend’s fiancé.
There was only one course of action. If the truth had gotten out it would have ruined me and brought immense shame upon our family, so my father did the only thing he could.
He paid Alberto a large sum of money and forced him to marry me. ”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Nicolo mutters beside me. He looks stunned. So does Nonna. She’s actually gone a little pale. Nicolo jumps up and ushers her to his chair, where she sits down heavily. Her feet barely reach the floor.
“You were pregnant,” she says faintly. “And Alberto was the father.”
Violetta presses her lips together and nods.
“It is my biggest shame,” she admits. “And yet I could not tell you the truth. I could not let anyone know I was pregnant before we married. My father forbade it. It was one of the conditions of the marriage, that our shameful secret never get out. I agreed to say nothing. What else could I do? I married Alberto and had his baby. I honored my father’s demands in order to save our family’s honor and my own reputation.
I thought my heart would burst from the shame of what I had done to you, but I could not say a word. I have never said a word.”
“All these years?” Nonna whispered. “Surely, you could have told me at some point?”
Violetta laughed humorlessly. “Why? So you could despise me even more? You have hated me for good reason, Bruna. How would knowing the truth change that?” She shakes her head and sighs heavily.
“You should thank the Blessed Virgin that you did not end up married to Alberto. He was not a good man. He was cruel when he drank, which was often. And he had many women after me. He did not want to marry me, nor I him. The estate has prospered, you are right, but no one knew the truth of what happened behind closed doors. I suffered at his hands for many long years. I have paid dearly for my sins.”
Nonna’s mouth has dropped open into a round little O of shock. “He was cruel to you?” she asks. “Violetta, is that true?” Her eyes search Violetta’s face earnestly.
Violetta looks down. “It’s true, though I do not wish to remember it,” she says dismissively.
I think she’s embarrassed. “Let me assure you, his death was a release for me. I did not mourn him, but I mourned you and our friendship, many times over. I grieved my failure, and what it did to you. I grieved our friendship. You were like a sister to me.”
Violetta looks Nonna square in the eye. “I am sorry, Bruna. I know you cannot forgive me, but I am glad to finally be able to say the words.” Her mouth is pursed tight and her bony hands are clenched together in a knot in front of her on the desk. She looks so weary.