Summer in Tuscany (3 page)

Nonna

Nonna Jericho was busy cooking that big ritual Sunday lunch. It was what she did best and the preparations kept her busy all week. Right now, though, she wasn’t thinking so much about her tomato sauce. She was worrying about Gemma.

She thought Gemma worked too hard, that the hours were too long, that she was under too much stress. Gemma used to be such a joyous, bubbly, flirty girl, full of energy and joie de vivre. There had been many prettier girls in high school, but there was just something about her; all the boys had been after her, and of course she had chosen, and married, the wrong one.

Even that bad experience hadn’t gotten Gemma down, though. That had come much later, on a cold winter night three years ago, to be exact. But Gemma never talked about that. Sometimes Nonna wished she would, but Gemma just kept it locked away inside her. Yet what happened that night had taken away the laughing, vital young woman and left only the responsible, dedicated emergency room doctor.

Nonna gave the tomato sauce a thoughtful stir, pushing back a strand of dark hair and bending her face over the pan to catch the aromas of garlic and oregano, as well as of the half bottle of Chianti she had tipped into it to give it some guts. It smelled good. And so it should, it had been brewing for two days. Ten more minutes and she would turn off the heat and let it stand, allowing the flavors to blend and soften.

She straightened up and, quite suddenly, the room was spinning around her. She clutched the wooden kitchen chair, then sank into it, her head in her hands, waiting for the faintness to pass.

This had happened several times in the past few weeks and the doctor had told her she should rest. He had also told her she had a congenital mitral valve condition and that her heart was weak. This was not Dr. Gemma talking, of course. This was her own doctor, the one she hadn’t told Gemma about. Anyway, she didn’t know whether to believe him or not.
Congenital
meant she’d had this condition since she was born—right? So why hadn’t she had any symptoms before?

It happens, the doctor had told her, when you get to your age.
Mamma mia,
she was sixty and he was talking like she was an antique! Anyhow, she certainly was not taking to her bed and becoming an invalid. She would take daily medication and continue as though nothing was any different. And she wasn’t telling anybody about it, especially not Gemma. Life would go on, day by day, as it always had. Until one day it didn’t.

The blue airmail envelope was on the table in front of her. She ran her finger slowly over the familiar postmark, the foreign stamp, the carefully written address. Then she took out The Letter, pushed her glasses up on her nose, and began to read it. One more time.

Gemma

The smell of garlicky roasting meats wafted down Nonna’s street as we got out of the car. Livvie sniffed the air eagerly, like a hound at the hunt. She reached into the backseat to get Sinbad, who always came with us on his lavender, rhinestone-studded leash—Livvie’s choice, not mine, and certainly not, I’m sure, big butch Sinbad’s.

She tugged her miniskirt down to a more acceptable level before she went in to see her grandmother, and of course she also tucked that eternal cell phone into her jacket pocket, still hoping, I knew, for a call from the “dream date,” who might turn out to be only a dream. Then, with Sinbad under her arm, she ran up the steps to Grandma’s house.

The rain clouds had cleared, and a cold sun was peeking through. I noticed a black Jeep Cherokee parked across the road. My friend Patty and her husband, Jeff, had beaten us to it. My spirits lifted. I always loved to see them, and I also loved these Sundays “at home.”

Livvie bounced through the kitchen door—nobody ever used the front door at Nonna’s; the kitchen was where the action was. Then she was enfolded in Nonna’s bosomy hug and kisses were showered on her face.

“Carina,”
Nonna said, smiling, and Livvie beamed back; her faux grown-up defenses were down, and she was just a little kid again. “I missed you this week, Nonna,” she murmured, still hugging.

“And I missed you,
ragazza
.”

This was their usual preliminary. Later, the sparks would fly, as they always did when the two of them met. One young, one old, both opinionated and stubborn—what else could it be?

I was next in line for the hug, then Nonna pushed me back and took a good long look at me. This was what she always did and I knew exactly what was coming.

“You look tired.” She pronounced her usual verdict, and I replied, as I always did, “Yes, Mom, I am tired, I’ve had about four hours’ sleep.” Then I waited for the inevitable lecture on how I should quit the trauma ward and think more about myself and about Livvie, get my hair done, and buy some new clothes. But today, surprisingly, it did not come.

Patty was putting plates and silverware on the table, and Jeff was leaning against the sink, sipping Chianti, watching. I went over and gave them both a kiss. Then, as always, I was drawn like a magnet to the stove. I lifted pot lids, checking with my nose on what they contained, then I tore off a crust of hard Italian bread, dunked it in the tomato sauce, and tasted it. Forget gourmet restaurants, this was my idea of gastronomic heaven.

Steam clouded my glasses and I took them off and wiped them on a towel, glancing nearsightedly around. I caught Patty in the act of checking me out. She said, “You don’t look like a hag to me, honey,” and we laughed remembering last night, but I could tell from her eyes that she thought I looked beat.

Jeff poured the Chianti, his smoothly shaven cheeks already pink from the heat of the kitchen, and Nonna flung open the window, to let out the steam, she said, but Patty said she’d bet it was so her neighbors would get an envious whiff of that roast and know that Sophia Jericho had done it again.

Watching them together, I knew Jeff was Patty’s soul mate. No doubt about it. They even looked alike, both with red hair, though his was paler than Patty’s, and with ginger lashes like Sinbad’s, who, by the way, had established a beachhead close to the wooden cutting board where the roast leg of lamb drizzled succulent juices into the grooves.

Jeff is a UPS driver and that’s how Patty met him, on his regular daily stop delivering parcels to the hospital. She’d told me he was tall and hunky in his brown shorts and crisp shirt, and it was immediate head-over-heels time. They were still holding hands now, seven years later, and even as I watched, Jeff dropped a kiss on Patty’s upturned face.

I turned away, sighing enviously. “What can I do to help, Mom?”

“First thing is you can remove that cat from my table.” Nonna glared at Sinbad, who stared back unfazed. He yowled piteously, though, when I picked him up and dumped him on the floor.

“And Patty, you two stop smooching,” Nonna added. “Jeff, I need you to lift this pot.”

“Sì, signora.”
Jeff grinned, and Patty smoothed down her skirt like a guilty teenager caught making out.

Livvie came in from the porch, letting the screen door slam behind her.
“Madonnina mia!”
Nonna snapped. “All these years, Olivia, and you still haven’t learned to close a screen door properly?”

“Sorry, Nonna.” Livvie slumped into a chair and hauled Sinbad onto her lap. “Poor kitty, did Nonna shout at you then?” she asked in a loud whisper, giggling as her grandmother snorted.

I carved the lamb while Jeff and Nonna and Patty served up the ravioli in that famous sauce
and
the
vitello tonnato and
the baked eggplant with mozzarella
and
the little potatoes roasted with fresh rosemary
and
the salad
and
that crusty bread I loved so much. More wine was poured and Cokes were popped open. Conversation rattled around, about the usual things—work, food, wine, school, boy bands, neighbors—while Livvie surreptitiously fed Sinbad under the table.

Then the
torta della nonna
, the “grandmother’s cake” with the special chocolate filling, which I think Livvie still believed was a cake only
her
Nonna made, was placed on the table, on the same gaudy red-and-green-flowered plate we had used for at least thirty years. Ice cream was fetched from the freezer, the coffee set to brew, and the
vinsanto
poured.

Everything was exactly the same as it always was. You could print out a scenario of our Sundays at Nonna’s and use it every week of the year. Nothing ever changed. At least, not until now.

“Allora, bambini,”
Nonna said.

I glanced suspiciously at her. She only ever called us
bambini
when she was up to something.

“I have a surprise for you.” She pulled a crumpled pale-blue airmail envelope from her apron pocket and held it up for us to see. “A letter,” she said, as though we hadn’t already guessed. “From Bella Piacere,” she added, smiling proudly.

Livvie and I glanced at each other, brows raised. Bella Piacere was Nonna’s old village. We didn’t even know that she knew anyone there anymore.

“Attenzione!”
She adjusted her glasses and looked sternly over the tops to make sure she had our attention. Then slowly and carefully she unfolded The Letter and began to read.

“Mom,” I said, “we don’t speak Italian.” She threw me an irritated glare.

“Huh,” she said. “Maybe I should have married an Italian after all. Then you would have spoken. And Livvie, please remove that cat from the table.”

Livvie grabbed Sinbad. “Oh, go
on,
Nonna,” she said.

We looked at each other, amazed. Then Livvie said, “Does that mean you’re going to be rich?”

Nonna smiled back at her. “Possibly,” she said, and my heart sank, because somehow I knew she thought this was true.

Nonna refolded The Letter carefully, but I could tell from its crumpled state she had read it many times. She pushed up her glasses again and looked at us.

“I came to New York when I was thirteen years old,” she said. “Before that, I had never left Bella Piacere. I had never seen Florence, let alone Rome or Venice.
Allora
. Now I am going home. I’m going to Italy to collect my inheritance. I intend to see Bella Piacere one last time. Before I die.”

We stared at her, stunned into silence, as she put The Letter safely back in its envelope. And then she threw out the second bombshell. “And you, Gemma and Livvie, are coming with me.”

Was she
crazy
! She
knew
I had a demanding job. She
knew
I needed that job. I had responsibilities. I didn’t even have time to go to the movies, let alone go to Italy!

“You know we can’t do that, Mom,” I said. “And I don’t think you should go either. You don’t even know anyone in Bella Piacere anymore. Anyhow, this has to be some kind of hoax.”

“A priest would not lie,” she said firmly.

“Why not just call this Don Vincenzo and ask him exactly what the property is?” Patty said.

Nonna clutched The Letter to her heart as though she had been stabbed. “You want to take all the joy out of my surprise?”

“Oh, sorry…No, of course not,” Patty said, bewildered.

Nonna looked me firmly in the eye again.
“We are going,”
she said.

“But I
can’t
go,” Livvie cried. “Besides, I don’t
want
to go to Italy with all those boring foreigners. Anyhow, I’ve got stuff to do, and I’ve got school…and, like, there’s this really cute guy I might be dating—”

“We will go in your summer break.” Nonna cut her off in the middle of her protest. “And besides, it will be educational.”

Livvie’s pretty Italian-brown eyes rolled up in her head.

“A trip to Italy sounds pretty good to me.” Jeff tried to arbitrate. “Nonna would get to see her old home and find out what her property is, and Gemma, you and Livvie will get to know your roots. Besides,” he added, looking at me, “you could use a break.”

“Remember me?” I said. “The single mom? I have to make a living.”

“You haven’t taken a holiday in three years,” Patty put in. “You must have quite a few weeks’ vacation time stored up by now.”

I glared at her. She was undermining my position. Then I said to Nonna, “The only sensible thing to do is to give this Don Vincenzo a call and find out what he’s talking about.”

Nonna did not look at me. She didn’t look at any of us. She just got up and began removing the coffee cups from the table. She paced silently to the sink with them. Then she paced silently back again. Our eyes were fixed anxiously on her as she silently cleared the table.

She sank back into her chair and stared reproachfully at me. She took off her glasses, and I caught the glitter of a tear. “So,” she said wearily. “So, this is how
little
my family thinks of me.
My family. The only family I have left in the world
.” Her voice dropped a tone, and she added dolefully, “Except for maybe a few cousins still in my old village of Bella Piacere, where I now have property.”

“M-o-m.” I could hear an echo of Livvie’s exasperated whine in my own voice. But I was still absolutely firm about this. “I have responsibilities. I can’t just drop everything and go on some crazy wild-goose chase. It’s impossible. We’re not going to Italy. And that’s that.”