Adriana Trigiani - Very Valentine

“Gram, I’ve always wondered about something. Why does the sign over our shop say ‘Since 1903’ when, in fact, it was 1920 when Grandpop and his father emigrated?”

Gram smiles. “He met Jojo in 1903. That was his way of honoring her.”

I think about Roman, and if our love will last. It seems the women in my family have to fight for love to sustain it. It doesn’t come easily to us, nor does it stay without a battle. We have to work at it. I look over at her. “Is something wrong?”

“The last trip I took with your grandfather was this time of year, the spring before he died.”

“We didn’t even know he was sick.”

“He did. I think he knew that it was the last time he would see Italy. He had a bad heart for years. We just never talked about it.”

Gram breaks a roll open and puts half of it on my plate. I remember Tess telling me about Grandpop having a friend . We’re far from Perry Street, and Gram is opening up in a way that she never allows herself at home. I’m usually as reticent to discuss these matters as she is, but the moment is here, and the wine is hearty, so I ask, “Gram, did Grandpop have a girlfriend?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Tess told me that he did.”

“Tess has a big mouth.” Gram frowns.

“Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

“What good would it do?”

“I don’t know. An honest family history is worth something.”

“To whom?”

“To me.” I reach out and put my hand on hers.

“Yes, he had a girlfriend,” Gram sighs.

“How was that even possible? When would he find the time?”

“Men can always find the time for that, ” Gram says.

“How? You lived and worked in the same building.”

“This is a buying trip, not a Lenten retreat,” Gram says. “I save my secrets for the confessional.”

“Pretend I’m a version of Father O’Hara with better legs.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Did you confront him? Did you confront her ?” I have a vision of my independent grandmother standing up for herself, like Norma Shearer when she takes on Joan Crawford in The Women.

She nods. “After my husband died, I saw her on the street. I told her I knew, and she denied it, which was nice of her. Then I asked her if she made him happy.”

“Did she answer you?”

“She said no, she couldn’t make him happy. He wished that he could make it work with me. Well, that got to me. With all our problems, the truth is, I loved your grandfather. We had tough times in our business and that really took a toll on us at home. I was hard on him when he’d try new things and fail, and he grew to resent me.”

“Being an artist is all about trying new things.”

“I know that now. I didn’t then. I also learned that when a man resents his wife, he acts on it.”

“You must have been furious.”

“Oh, of course I was. And I did what lots of women do with rage. We bury it. We withdraw. Stop talking. We go to bed angry and we wake up angry. We fulfill our obligations, we keep up the house and the children, but the very act of holding it all together is resentment in a different form. My way of hurting him was to act like I didn’t need him.”

Gram lifts off her glasses and brushes away a tear.

She continues, “I regret that deeply. Maybe, I think, on one of those days when he was taking a break and having a cigar on the roof, I should have climbed the stairs and gone outside and put my arms around him and told him that I loved him. Maybe we could’ve gotten it back. But I didn’t and we couldn’t and that was that.”

I’m jet-lagged and can’t sleep. I sit in the window of the Spolti Inn and wait for morning. The houses are dark, but the moon is bright, turning the main street into a glistening silver river. The rolling hills fall away in the darkness as the clouds pass in front of the moon like party balloons.

I throw back the coverlet and climb into bed. I pick up Goethe’s Italian Journey. My bookmark is a photograph of Roman standing in the door of Ca’ d’Oro. I close the book and pick up my cell phone. I dial. Roman’s phone goes to voice mail. So I text him:

Arrived safely. Bella Italia! Love you, V.

Then I dial home. Mom picks up the phone.

“Ma? We got here.”

“How was the trip?”

“Good. I’m driving a stick shift. Gram and I will need neck braces after a month in that rental. It bucks like Old Paint. How’s Dad?”

“Hungry. But the organic diet seems to be working.”

“Give the man a plate of spaghetti.”

“Don’t worry. He sneaks salami, so when he’s cured, we can’t say it’s the bean curd that did the trick. Hey, I put a surprise in your suitcase for Capri. It’s in the red Macy’s bag.”

“Great.” My mother’s idea of a surprise is a 75-percent-off demi-bra and matching tap pants made with a print of dancing coffee beans that have the word Peppy embroidered across the rear end.

“Something wonderful is going to happen for you on the Isle of Capri. I’m thinking engagement.”

“Ma, please.”

“I’m just saying, hurry up. I don’t want my first face-lift and the first dance at your wedding to coincide. I’m sinking like a soufflé over here.”

“You don’t need any work, Mom.”

“I caught a glimpse of myself looking down in the bathroom tile when I was scrubbing it and I said, ‘Dear God, Mike, you look like a sock puppet.’ I’d get the Botox but they aren’t saying good things about it, plus, what’s my face without any expression? Animation is my thing.”

My mom could talk twelve transatlantic hours in a row about cosmetic enhancement, so I cut her off. “Mom, how do you know if the guy is the guy?”

“You mean if he’ll be a good husband?” She pauses, then says, “The ticket is for the man to love the woman more than she loves him.”

“Shouldn’t it be equal?”

Mom cackles. “It can never be equal.”

“But what if the woman loves the man more?”

“A life of hell awaits her. As women, the deck is stacked against us because time is our enemy. We age, while men season. And trust me, there are plenty of women out there looking for a man, and they don’t mind staking a claim on somebody else’s husband, no matter how old, creaky, and deaf they are.”

She lowers her voice. “Even with the cancer, at sixty-eight, your father is a catch . I don’t need round two in the infidelity fight. I’m twenty years older and fifteen pounds heavier, and my nerves, let’s face it, are shot. Plus, I’ll let him make a mistake once, but twice? Never! So, I keep myself nice and smile, even if I’m crying on the inside. Maintenance! Do you think I wanted to go to the dentist and have all the silver pried out of my mouth and replaced with enough porcelain to build a shrine and fountain to the Blessed Lady? Of course not. But it had to be done! When I smiled with my old teeth it was like looking into a pickle barrel and that wouldn’t do. A woman must endure a lot to keep herself in shape and keep a man…intrigued. And don’t think I’m kidding about the face-lift. I’ve got the infomercial on Thermage Tivoed. I’ve watched it plenty; the only thing is, there are women on that commercial who look better in the before pictures and I’ve yet to figure that out. And show me one woman over sixty-”

Mom gags and coughs. Saying that number actually closes her throat. She goes on.

“-one woman over that fence who doesn’t know she’s got to fight like a tiger and I’ll show you a woman who has given up. The only difference between me and the women who let themselves go and wind up looking like Andy Rooney in a wig is my will. My fortitude. My determination not to quit.”