Chapter Twenty-One
Celeste
That weekend, while visiting her parents for lunch with the children, Celeste sat in the backyard, looking out at the sky when her mother poked her head out.
“Honey, your siblings want to say hi. They're on FaceTime.”
Celeste took the phone, bracing herself as Lauretta and Enzo's faces filled the screen, both of them smiling. But Lauretta's smile faded almost immediately.
“There she is! How was your trip?”
“It was great.”
“You look terrible.” Oh, Enzo. Her brother was nothing if not blunt. “No offense.”
“Thanks. I'm just tired.”
Lauretta leaned closer to the camera. She could smell a story from a mile away, and Celeste was apparently broadcasting one. “Mom and Dad are worried about you. They said you've been really distant since you got back.”
“I'm alright. Are you still anchoring the evening news? I saw that piece you did on the education budget. It was very well done.”
Lauretta studied her through the screen for another moment, clearly debating whether to push. Then she sighed and let it go. “Thank you. It was a nightmare to put together. The superintendent kept trying to dodge questions, and I had to corner him after a board meeting.”
“That's my sister. Relentless in pursuit of truth.”
“Someone has to be.” Lauretta settled back, and Celeste saw her husband Marcus appear behind her, dropping a kiss on top of her head before disappearing again. “Marcus says hi, by the way. He's making dinner. His famous creamy lobster risotto.”
“Tell him I'm jealous.” Celeste said, and before Lauretta could circle back to her, she turned to her brother. “How's the family, Enzo?”
Enzo's face lit up the way it always did when talking about his wife and daughter. “Maya's teething but she's finally figured out how to clap, so she spends all day just clapping at everything ranging from the cat to her own feet.”
“That's adorable.”
“It's exhausting. But yeah, pretty adorable. Anna's handling it better than me. She has this supernatural ability to function on zero sleep. I'm pretty sure she's not human.”
“Send them my love,” Celeste said. “And tell Anna she's a saint for putting up with you.”
“Every day,” Enzo agreed. “We'll be home next month, all three of us for a family dinner weekend.”
“Looking forward to it.” Celeste handed the phone back to her mother. “I should go say hi to Nonna.”
She found her grandmother in the garden, tending to her roses with the same meticulous care she applied to everything. Vittoria looked up when Celeste approached, and she beckoned her closer.
“Come, sit with me.”
They settled on the wooden bench beneath the arbor, roses blooming overhead. The air smelled sweet, almost cloying. Celeste remembered sitting here as a child, listening to Vittoria's stories about the old country.
Celeste had spent her whole life trying to be worthy of that sacrifice.
“What's wrong, my darling girl?”
“Nothing's wrong. I'm just…”
Vittoria took Celeste's hand gently. “We share the same heart, you and I. I can tell when something is wrong with my precious granddaughter.”
The kindness in her voice thawed the icy block within Celeste. All those years of privately holding herself together, and one gentle question from her grandmother undid it all.
Vittoria pulled her close, letting Celeste cry against her shoulder like she'd done so many times as a child.
“I once had a friend back in Italy,” Vittoria murmured, her hand stroking Celeste's hair.
“She loved another woman. This was—oh, sixty years ago? Seventy? People were not kind about such things then. She was very afraid of what people would say and what her family would think. Utterly terrified of being cast out.”
Celeste went still.
“But in the end, she pursued love anyway. And you know what? She was happier for it. Much happier than if she had hidden.” Vittoria pulled back, cupping Celeste's face with both hands. “You can do the same, tesoro.”
“H-how did you know?”
“I know you very well. You're not often scared, yet right now you look more terrified than I've ever seen you. And you just returned from a road trip with an old female classmate. I can put two and two together.”
“That's remarkably perceptive.”
“I am old, not blind. Tell me about her.”
Celeste felt familiar wells of panic rising to the surface. “What about Marco? You cut him off and said he was dead to you. The whole family did.”
Vittoria's expression shifted to confusion. “Marco? What does he have to do with anything?”
“He came out as gay and you disowned him.” The words tumbled out, decades of fear behind them. “I heard you say it. I was nine years old and I heard you tell everyone he was dead to you.”
“No.” Vittoria shook her head firmly. “Marco was disowned because he is a thief. He stole your great-aunt's jewelry and sold it to pay gambling debts. He is a bad person who betrayed our trust. Being gay has nothing to do with it.”
The world tilted, rearranging itself into a shape Celeste didn't recognize. “But I always thought—”
“You thought we rejected him for loving a man? No, child. Never. We rejected him for stealing from family. For lying and betraying trust.”
“But you never said…no one ever explained…I spent so long thinking…”
“Perhaps we should have been clearer.” Her grandmother sighed. “It was assumed that everyone knew the reason. Marco's betrayal was shameful to speak of, which made it easier to simply stop mentioning him at all.”
Celeste's mind was reeling. She'd spent all these years believing her family would reject her for being gay, all based on a misunderstanding.
“I was just a child. I didn’t understand why everyone stopped talking about him. I spent my whole life thinking it was because he was gay. All of this happened at the same time, didn’t it?”
Vittoria’s face crumbled. “We should have explained to you children what really happened. Of course you didn’t understand. And we failed you, especially, by not making it clear.”
“But I do not understand. I remember some people in the family speaking of him being gay as the reason he was cut off,” she said, confused now.
Her grandmother sighed. “There were people who wanted to cut him off because he was gay. Remember, this was many years ago when the world was different. But there were those of us who continued to want him in our lives. He was…he is… my nephew after all. Some people stopped speaking to him when he told us he was gay, yes.”
“But not you?”
“I was not one of them, no. I think him being gay made it so that some family members looked to find reasons to vilify him further. In fact, when I was first told he had attempted to sell one of our family heirlooms I did not believe it. I thought they were lying because they wanted to smear him for being gay. But they had evidence. And then more evidence came out and more…”
“But I … I was sure that I heard you say it was because he was gay. He was a monster.”
Vittoria shook her head. “He told me he was gay months before we found out he had been stealing. We just did not talk about it. Then, when we found out what he had been doing, some used his being gay to … It was hard to say. They were hateful and connected the two things together even though they have nothing to do with each other.”
Had she really misunderstood all of this? Her grandmother took Celeste’s hand.
“You never were meant to hear about all of this. You barely even knew Marco. How did you hear about this anyhow?”
Celeste thought back to the day she’d discovered her gay cousin had been disowned.
“Your sister. Isabella. She was here and the two of you were talking about him and I remember her saying he was cut out of the family because he was gay. That her son was a monster.”
“Ah. Now I understand.” Vittoria’s brows drew together. “Isabella took it badly when he came out. I think she might have forgiven him for almost anything else—but being gay? To her, that was a sin. And somehow, in her mind, that sin explained everything else.” She let out a quiet breath.
“You know how religious our family is back home. My sister…” She hesitated. “She sees the world differently than I do. I am sorry you thought so ill of me all these years, cara.”
She’d misunderstood everything. She’d let bits of conversation she’d overheard shape her view of her own family.
“And Braden,” Celeste continued. “Everyone's been so angry at him because he came out and left me for a man.”
“We are angry because he deceived you. He married you knowing he could never love you the way a husband should love a wife. He wasted years of your life, cara. That is why we are upset.”
“He didn't deceive me. We both knew about each other and married because we thought it would be easier. And we loved each other, just not romantically.”
Vittoria was quiet for a long moment before speaking. “It appears we all owe Braden an apology.”
Relief flooded through Celeste, so intense it was almost painful. Her grandmother wasn't horrified and neither was she turning away.
“I didn't want to let you down.” She bit her lip to keep it from wobbling. “Because you sacrificed so much for us.“
“Oh, my darling girl.” Vittoria pulled her close again. “My greatest gift is seeing you happy. All of you—you, your siblings, your cousins. Happiness is what I wanted. It hurts me that you thought you needed to hide from us. That you carried this fear alone for so long.”
“I'm sorry,” Celeste whispered.
“Don't apologize. Never apologize for protecting yourself. But know that you don't need to anymore. Not with me or the rest of this family.”
“What about Mom and Dad?”
“It may come as a shock to them. But they will accept you. They love you more than anything. Though perhaps I should be there when you tell them, for support.”
“I think I need to do this now.” Celeste gulped down hard. “Before I lose my nerve.”
Vittoria stood, offering her hand. “Then let's go.”
They walked back into the house together; Celeste's parents were in the living room with the twins, who were enacting a play for their attentive audience.
“Mom, Dad,” Celeste began, unable to keep her voice from trembling. “I need to tell you something.”
They looked up immediately, concern replacing their smiles.
“What's wrong, sweetheart?” Ottavia asked.
Vittoria spoke before Celeste could. “Theo, Luna, why don't you go to the kitchen and get some gelato from the freezer? The good kind from the Italian market.”
Theo’s eyes lit up. “Really? But Nonna said that was for special occasions.”
“This is a special occasion. Go on. Take your time. Maybe bring some for your mother too.”
The twins exchanged puzzled glances but didn’t argue with the promise of gelato. They hurried off, their voices fading as they headed to the kitchen.
“Now back to the question. Nothing's wrong. I just…” Celeste felt Vittoria's hand on her back, supportive and strong. She took a deep breath. “I'm a lesbian. I have been my whole life, and I'm in love with a woman.”
The silence that followed felt endless. Her parents stared at her, surprise clear on both their faces.
Then her mother moved, crossing the room to pull Celeste into a tight hug. “We love you. We'll always love you. Thank you for trusting us with this.”
Daniel joined the hug, his arms wrapping around both. “Your mother’s absolutely right. You're our daughter and nothing could ever change that.”
Celeste felt tears streaming down her face, but this time they were due to relief and gratitude.
“Now we have an actual surprise for your siblings the next time they call,” Ottavia said, pulling back with a happy sniffle. “They're going to be so annoyed they missed this.”
“In the meantime,” her father said, guiding Celeste to the couch. “Tell us everything.
And so she did.
She explained how she had misunderstood what happened with Marco—and how that fear had followed her for years, convincing her it would happen again.
She talked about the fake marriage to Braden, about two people hiding from the same truth. She told them why she had come home early from New Orleans, though she spared them the worst of the fight.
Then she spoke about Ruby—about what it felt like to see her again after all those years.
Finally, she admitted how good it had felt to stop pretending, even if only for a week. And confessed she had fallen in love with Ruby… even knowing she was still too afraid to choose her.
“She bought a sketchbook and rocket kit for the children because she wanted them to have something special. She cared about them even though she'd never met them.”
“She sounds wonderful,” Ottavia said appreciatively. “Where is she now?”
“I don't know. I…I ruined it by asking to keep our relationship a secret. And she said no, because she deserves better than that. She does deserve better than that.”
And in addition to that, her last words to Ruby had been cruel, throwing her failures in her face and violating her trust by sharing her work without permission.
Ruby would never forgive her. And Celeste wasn’t sure she deserved forgiveness.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Ottavia murmured. “It's not too late. You can still—”
Celeste’s phone buzzed and Braden's name flashed on the screen.
She stepped into the hallway to answer. “Hey.”
“Ruby's here in Cheyenne Valley.” Braden's voice was urgent. “She returned the rental car, said hello, and now she’s heading to the airport to board a flight to Arizona.”
Celeste could hardly believe her ears. “She's here? Now?”
“If you want to fix this, you need to head to the airport now. Her flight leaves in about half an hour.”
Celeste checked her watch with fumbling fingers.
4:15.
“Go,” Braden encouraged. “Just go.”
Celeste hung up and rushed back into the living room. “I have to go. Ruby is here. She’s at the airport. Braden just called me. I'm sorry. I'll explain everything later, I promise—”
“Go,” her mother said, understanding lighting her face immediately. “We'll watch the kids.”
“Go be brave, my little one,” Vittoria said, her eyes shining with pride. “Go fight for your happiness.”
Celeste grabbed her keys and ran.
The drive to the airport usually took fifteen minutes. Celeste made it in eight, hovering on the cusp of breaking what felt like every traffic law in Illinois. She ran red lights and cut off other drivers, and as she did so, she prayed that she’d get there in time.