They Gave Me a Monthly Allowance, So I Took Back My Building novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Price

Ottavio's POV

My grandmother signed the mortgage at her kitchen table with the pen she uses for crosswords.

She is eighty-one. She read every page first, with her glasses on the end of her nose.

"Two hundred acres," she said. "Your grandfather's ridge. For her."

"For her father's vines, Nonna. They're sixty acres of the oldest rows in the valley."

"And for her."

I didn't answer that.

She signed on the last line and capped the pen.

"Your grandfather asked the bank for a year, and the bank gave him a month. He never forgave the man who bought the house."

"I know, Nonna."

"But Aurelio Bellandi came to the funeral and stood at the back. He told me he would write to the family someday and explain. He never did."

She looked at the pen.

"Maybe he wrote to his daughter instead. Take the car, it's late."

I took the truck instead.

Twenty minutes later I was sitting at the bottom of the Bellandi drive with the engine off, and the folder on the passenger seat felt heavier than the mortgage.

I had been to a lender's hotel suite that afternoon and heard the price. I had a signed agreement with the bank for the money.

I had also told myself I would tell her after it was done.

I had said the same sentence to myself in October.

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