Chapter 77

Claudia.

One year later, Sicily.

“We can’t have the stairs there!” I tell Gianluca for the second time.

“This French door begs for stairs,” he insists.

He can be very stubborn when he wants something.

“It wouldn’t be safe for the children.”

At the moment, we have Luigi and Nino—Nurul’s and Daniel’s little boy. Nino is still only a baby but he’ll soon be a toddler like our Luigi.

“Then where should we put these stairs?” Gianluca asks, reining in his displeasure.

“Here, in front of the entrance. Two flights meeting in the middle like in the Gattopardo movie.”

He sighs.

“I was hoping for something less traditional.”

Gianluca and I have been discussing the plans for our new home for months and we still haven’t decided on the final version. I imagine a villa in the 1800s style, with high frescoed ceilings and dramatic staircases. Gianluca imagines a futuristic thing with sharp angles and clever shapes. We still haven’t come to an agreement and this is why we are not seeing eye-to-eye on anything, even the tiniest detail. I think he regrets involving me.

“I remind you that it was you who insisted that I should be involved in planning our home. Did you think that I was going to say yes to all your suggestions and tell you how wonderful and clever all your ideas were?”

He snorts a laugh. “I couldn’t even begin to imagine you doing that.”

“Then, unless you’re going to fit a two-meter-wide stairgate, we’ll have the stairs here, unless we want to see our children tumble down the stairs on a regular basis.”

A thought suddenly hits me. It could be me tumbling down the stairs. It’s a frightening thought and, one day, when my RA progresses it might come true.

But right now, since Luigi’s birth, I’ve been in remission. It’s been the longest remission since I was diagnosed with RA, and I’ve almost forgotten that I’ve got it. The doctors think that it might be caused by the pregnancy and breastfeeding hormones. They’re probably right, but that’s not the reason why I decided to get pregnant again. Gianluca and I wanted Luigi to have a sibling and, in a moment of optimism about the future, I agreed to try for a baby. I got pregnant at once.

At least, that seems to be something that works well in my body.

Scrap that. There are many things that work well in my body. It’s just that I always take those for granted and notice only the ones that don’t work. So I’ve been making a conscious effort to notice all the things my body can do and be grateful for them.

There’s a lot I can be grateful for, not just in my body. From the people around me to my job, which I’m still holding down despite all my absences and distractions. Yes, I’m still retelling fairy tales for children and I’m still enjoying writing them. I’m now reading them to Luigi at bedtime. He doesn’t seem at all impressed that his mamma’s name is on the cover of the books but I’m holding out hope that, one day, he will.

I can be grateful about being in remission—whether it was the hormones that caused it or something else. Part of me believes that it’s my happiness that’s keeping the RA at bay.

Then there’s our new home. Even if it’s still only partly finished and mostly still a building site, I love it already.

We’ve got acres of vineyards, olive groves, and far in the distance, a view of the Mediterranean Sea stretching out all the way to Africa. We’re not as close to Palermo as I would have wanted, but Gianluca didn’t want to be too close to his family.

“Fine, the stairs will go wherever you want them. But can we have a pond here?”

“Oh, darling, we can’t have a pond with toddlers in the house. It’s too dangerous.”

“We’ll fit a net on top.”

I’m not convinced.

“And a fence with gates all around it,” he adds, trying to persuade me.

“Okay.”

He smiles and my stomach flutters. It always makes me happy to see him happy.

We still have our moments, but after all we’ve been through, we now appreciate the important things more and let the non-important ones go. Like the pond, which I really don’t like.

But there’s an important thing I need to talk to him about, and I’m not looking forward to it.

“Good. I will tell the architect that we’ve come to a decision and she can proceed. This way we might have the villa completed before the new baby’s christening,” he says, cheerfully.

Maybe this is the time to tell him about that matter. I hate to have to bring it up but I’ve been putting it off for weeks and I can’t any longer.

“About the christening, there’s something we need to talk about,” I say.

“Yes?”

“We don’t have many guests,” I say. This is taking it from a long way round.

“If there’s someone you want to invite, some extra guests, go ahead. I don’t mind whoever you want to invite.”

If I were devious, I would take this answer and go ahead with it. But it would be cruel because I’m sure he doesn’t realize who I’m thinking about.

“I’m thinking about your mother,” I say.

“What?”

He drops the tablet with the architect’s plans.

“She’s written a letter to me.”

“Asking to be invited?”

Gianluca’s eyes are popping out of their orbits.

“Not exactly. She says she would like to be present in the lives of her only grandchildren.”

Gianluca gives a wry laugh.

“That’s never going to happen. Remember how she cursed me when my father died?”

“It might have been just a show of grief for others to see. Or a reckless moment which she now regrets.”

“She’s taken the helm of the clan.”

“She might have done it because she felt that it was her duty. Or she could have been scared that the family would fall into an internal war if there wasn’t a clear successor.”

Gianluca stands up and paces around.

“Aren’t you afraid of letting our children come into contact with her?” he asks me.

“Afraid of what? That she might turn them into mafiosi? No. She clearly didn’t manage to do it with you, who were her own son.”

“How about that she hurts them? This could be a trap. She might just be posing as a doting grandmother in order to exact her revenge.”

“That’s possible but I think it’s unlikely. In any case, I would be there with them. We could have a bodyguard standing by. We could search her for weapons before letting her in. If she’s really desperate to see her grandchildren, as her letter suggests, she won’t complain. It will be much better than not having a chance at all.”

Gianluca continues to pace.

“Maybe I’m being too soft because I’m a mother now, I put myself in her shoes and feel that I would die if I was separated from my children and grandchildren,” I add.

“Fine. Do as you wish. But take every possible precaution, assume the worst, consider her guilty until proven innocent.”

“I will.”

“And one last thing.”

“Yes?”

“Do not let me see her.”

***

Gianluca.

I should have given Claudia one more condition: do not let me know when she’s coming.

Instead, Claudia told me that she was coming today so that I could avoid her, and now I’m like a caged animal, trapped in my study. I don’t want to leave this room in case I should meet her in the corridor. But I can’t just sit here and work because I’m tense as a bow’s string because I know that she’s in my home, under my roof, in the same room as my pregnant wife and my child. What level of insanity made me think that I could trust a woman who cursed me and wished me dead instead of my father?

I should have chosen to retreat to another room instead of this one, right next to the sitting room where they were chatting. I can hear the muffled rumble of their chatting and Luigi’s laughter. At least, I hope it is laughter and not him being strangled.

What’s so funny? My mother has never been funny. My family has never been funny. Everything was a terribly serious business, usually a matter of life or death for someone. More often death.

I’m dying with the curiosity of finding out what they’re talking about. I open my French door. They must have their door open too, because I can hear them as clearly as if I were in the same room.

Someone is cooing and singing an Italian nursery rhyme that involves a lot of tickling.

“Row, row, row,

the King eats the roe,

the Queen eats the pickle

and you get... a tickle!”

My mother used to sing it to me. This must be her now. I had forgotten how she sounds when she’s tender and loving. I can’t believe that this is the same woman who wished my children would kill me. But as I listen to her song, memories flood back. She used to love me just like that. I stand up and step closer to the window. Luigi is giggling heartily and the sound of his happy voice is melting something in my heart. As my mother loves him, I don’t feel jealous but I feel loved too. Because why would she love him if not because he’s my son?

“Is Gianluca at home?” she asks.

There’s a moment of silence before Claudia replies that I’m out. It’s only a heartbeat but it’s enough for my mother to grasp that I’m avoiding her.

“I understand. Then please, tell him that I’m sorry about what I said in court.”

“I will.”

“Also tell him that I thank him for letting me see my grandson. And I thank you too, because I’m sure that you pushed him to say yes.”

Claudia doesn’t deny it or confirm it. Instead, she changed the topic, asking, “How is your family?”

“I don’t know,” my mother replies.

“How come?”

“I’m not in touch with them anymore since I remarried and stepped down from the lead.”

“You remarried? And stepped down?”

“Yes. I met someone who wasn’t in the mafia and I decided to quit. I’ve seen too many people die, too many others live in fear, anger and constant search for more power, more prestige. I had lost a son—your husband—and my own husband. I decided I’d had enough. So I asked my sister-in-law, Gianluca’s aunt, Alessandro’s mother, to take the helm of the family’s affairs, and I went off with my new husband. Lots of people in the family didn’t approve, including my own daughters.”

So this must be why she’s looking for a reconciliation—because she has been expelled from the family and she’s got nobody left. Or maybe I’m being too hard on her, and it’s just that the family was preventing her from coming back to me before, and now they’re not stopping her anymore. I want to believe that this second explanation is the true one. I want it so much that I inadvertently step onto the balcony.

“What’s that noise?” she asks Claudia.

“I think it’s the wind.”

“You must not trust winds. You must not trust anything,” she says with suspicion.

I guess that a lifetime of mafia isn’t wiped off in a day.

“Keep the child close to you while I check,” she instructs Claudia authoritatively and slinks out onto the balcony. Where I am.

We’re face-to-face with each other. For a moment we stare at each other, neither knowing what to do or what to say.

“Gianlù, I’m sorry,” she says, her voice breaking.

She looks old and fragile, and I can’t help feeling sorry for this old woman, no matter what she’s done to me in the past.

“Can you forgive me?” she says.

“I don’t know yet.” I sigh. “But I will try.”

“Thank you.”

Gingerly, Claudia comes out onto the balcony with our child in her arms. My mother turns to them.

“And thank you to your beautiful, lovely wife. I know that if it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t be standing in your home. I wouldn’t have had a chance to meet my grandchild or talk to you. I am so lucky,” my mother says, with tears in her eyes.

“No, Mamma. I’m the one who is lucky to have her.”

I step closer to Claudia and kiss her.

The End.