The Italian I Was Never Supposed to Understand novel · Chapter 24 of 32

Chapter 24: Under the Stars

Tommaso's mother came down the courtyard in her nightgown and the man's coat, with the dog at her heels.

She didn't open the gate.

She stood on her side of it with her arms folded.

Tommaso and I stood behind her.

His brother came out of the house barefoot, pulling on a sweater.

"It's midnight," his mother said. "Decent people are asleep."

"Decent people don't get offers like this one," said Raffaele's mother.

She held the folder through the iron bars.

Nobody took it.

So she opened it herself and read from it, in her careful Alba Italian.

"Two million euros. For the house, the cellar, the land, and the name."

His brother laughed out loud.

"The name," his mother repeated.

"Ferri. The label. The hill." Raffaele's mother smiled. "My son will make good use of it."

"Better than a family that sells its label files for a tractor."

His brother stopped laughing.

"After Saturday," she went on, "nobody in Piedmont will buy a bottle with your hill on it."

"You'll be glad of two million. I'm being generous."

Then she looked past Tommaso's mother, at me.

She switched to her slow, careful English.

"And you. The heiress. Still eating?"

"Every day, signora," I said, in her own Alba accent. "I have good teeth."

Her smile went thin.

Tommaso's mother held out her hand.

Raffaele's mother put the folder in it, satisfied.

Tommaso's mother turned around and walked back across the courtyard to the press house.

We all watched her.

She went to the nearest vat, where the crushed grapes were foaming purple in the dark.

She dropped the folder in.

It floated for a second on the cap of skins.

Then she took the long paddle and pushed it under.

She walked back to the gate, wiping her hands on her coat.

"That's the only Ferri wine your family will ever own," she said. "You can come back for it in two years. It'll taste like paper."

His brother made a sound.

"Now get off my road," she said. "Your son's tire tracks are still in my grass. Tell him I'm keeping them."

Raffaele's mother stood very still at the bars.

Then she got into the long black car.

It reversed all the way down the road with its headlights in our faces.

His mother watched until it was gone.

"Bed," she said, to all of us. "Everyone."

She went inside.

His brother followed, shaking his head, grinning.

Tommaso didn't move toward the house.

He took my hand and walked me the other way.

← Chapter 23 · All chapters · Chapter 25 →

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