Adriana Trigiani - Brava, Valentine

“You don’t want to work with him either.” The idea that June would leave because of Alfred, or even partly because of him, makes me angry about the situation Gram left me in all over again.

“I can handle Alfred.” June shrugs. “I just don’t want to. And he’s not the reason I’m leaving.”

The entrance door opens. Alfred, who has not set foot on the island of Manhattan in anything but a Brooks Brothers suit since he graduated from Cornell twenty years ago, wears jeans and a polo shirt with a parka thrown over it for his first day of work at the Angelini Shoe Company.

Gram’s attorney, Ray Rinaldi, trudges in behind him, carrying the same briefcase he’s had since the Korean War. He wears layers for warmth: a sweater vest under his trench coat and a Cossack hat with flaps over his ears. He’s dressed to place a flag on the highest peak in Antarctica.

“First day of school,” June says wryly as she picks up her pinking shears to resume her work from yesterday.

“That’s exactly what it feels like,” Alfred says.

I give Ray a gift bag off the desk. “Confetti from Gram’s wedding.”

“Thanks. I love Jordan almonds, but I can’t have them anymore.” Ray points to his mouth. “Too much bridgework.”

“Soak them in vodka first. That’s my tip,” June says.

“Shall we meet upstairs?” Alfred proposes.

Ray and Alfred go up the stairs. June motions for me to have courage as I follow them.

Ray sits down at the end of the table and pulls files from his briefcase. I take a folder of documents that I compiled for Alfred and Ray from Gram’s stack on the end of the table. I sit down across from Alfred with a pit of despair in my stomach.

Ray lays out the contracts, I look over them, but the words are a blur to me. I pretend to read them as Alfred pores over them. I look at Ray. He knows I’m making a deal that I never would have agreed to if I didn’t feel forced. But I have no choice in the matter. If I want to live and work here, I have to play along.

“Valentine, we’re going to establish a rental payment for you in the apartment above the workspace,” Ray says.

“That’s fine. I told Gram that’s okay with me.”

“We’ll keep it low.” Ray smiles.

“I hope so,” I tell him.

“It says here that all financial decisions are made jointly.” Alfred looks at Ray.

“It does,” Ray says.

“But Valentine has full control of the creative also.”

“Alfred, your grandmother was very clear. She wants you to serve as chief financial officer, setting budgets and payroll, restructuring debt, and assisting Valentine in whatever she may need to grow the company. This includes research and pursuit of future contracts. Now, Valentine has been engaged in product development with Bret Fitzpatrick…” Ray explains.

“He’s a fund-raiser,” Alfred says. “And he should be compensated for that.”

“Yes. And Teodora is comfortable with Bret in the mix, as long as his efforts serve Valentine’s vision.”

“I get it,” Alfred says.

“So any decisions about financing are to be made by you and Valentine-jointly,” Ray clarifies.

“That leaves me hamstrung,” Alfred says aloud as he continues reading.

“Well, it is my business.” I look at Ray.

“But I’ve been brought in as chief financial officer to run it,” Alfred corrects me.

“I mean-” I take a deep breath and lower my voice-“that it’s my business in the sense that I create the product we sell-and you rely on me to deliver that product. Otherwise, I’m happy to share everything.”

“Okay.” Alfred looks at me.

I realize that he’s only being agreeable because he’s been on the job for all of ten minutes. “So here’s my budget.” I reach across the table and give Alfred the current budget with operating expenses. “And here’s the list of custom shoes under current contract, with down payments and shipment dates.” I place the report on top of that. “And here are my projected business goals-including the manufacturing of the Bella Rosa . This file includes all of Bret’s research with the Small Business Administration and some information about foreign manufacturers. But the foreign element is incomplete. You can help me figure out that piece.”

“Wow.” Alfred seems slightly impressed. Then he says, “I’ll read over this.”

“Take your time.” I stand up. “Ray, thank you for setting this up for us.” I extend my hand to him. “I’ll probably be calling on you from time to time.”

Ray shakes my hand. “My pleasure.”

“My goal in life is to sell enough shoes so I might purchase you a proper briefcase.”

“Old habits die hard, I’m afraid.” Ray pats his old satchel.

“And sometimes they need to,” I tell him.

Gram left her bedroom suite behind. The heavy, dark stained oak furniture with its four-post finials and deep carvings on the headboard says 1940 like Rosie the Riveter or garter hose with seams. The bed is made with the same pale green satin spread that’s covered it since I was a child.

Gram suggested I move into her room, because it’s larger. I’ve been living in the smaller guest room all these years. My mother’s bedroom, across the hall, is a shrine to the 1950s. The wallpaper has a pattern of bunches of violets tied with gold ribbons that gives the effect of a year-round garden. I like the vintage paper but I don’t want to move in there either. I’m going to stay put. Gram will be back to visit, I hope, and when she returns, I want her to find some of the old familiar things she loves in place as she left them. Besides, I’ve grown to love the guest room across from the bath, with the stairs outside my door that lead to the roof. It’s home to me now.

My mother’s room is filled with stacks of storage boxes that Gram didn’t have time to sort through before she left. We packed up her clothes, and some heirlooms from her mother, to take to her new life in Italy. She and Dominic plan to redo his house in Arezzo, so she wanted to start fresh. She didn’t even take her reliable spaghetti pot, which signaled to me that she’s determined to start over.

I’ve promised myself that I will go through a box at a time, whenever I get a chance, and eventually I will have distributed these mementoes to my mother, sisters, and Alfred. There are lots of pictures of my mother, the only child, enough to fill a crate, and at least one wall in the homes of each of her four children. My mother’s life is chronicled from her birth in black and white to her marriage, in vivid shades of Kodachrome film. I’m getting to know her all over again.

The photographs are so telling of the moods we were in, and what was happening when the pictures were taken. The pictures taken in the 1980s, when Tess, Jaclyn, Alfred, and I were young, tell the story of a family in crisis, and then, once into the 1990s as we go off to college, you see the mood lift and the joy return.

My mother and father survived a crisis of my dad’s own design, when he had an affair and Mom moved us into this building during the summer of 1986. Of course, she never told us the real reason she moved us into the city-she said our house needed rewiring-but it was actually our dad that needed the redo. As the years went on, we got bits and pieces of the story, until our parents felt we were old enough to handle it, and then we were allowed to ask anything about it that we wished. Today, if we discuss the past, their story is told in full, complete with my father’s confession, my mother’s forgiveness, and my father’s return to the fold.

My father’s ancient infidelity is now part of the fabric of our family. We don’t embroider over it, or pretend it never happened-it’s just become one of those things-like a cancer diagnosis, a failed driver’s test, surviving the mumps, or the celebration of a deserved promotion with the Parks Department. Dad’s indiscretion is dropped into conversation like any date or period of historical significance in the story of our family. So, then too, is The Aftermath, the “better years,” Mom calls them, after our parents renewed their vows and we, their four children, stood up for them in church, knowing full well what they, and we, had been through. In a sense, they gave us the gift of forgiveness by forgiving one another. It was a lesson that took with my sisters and me, but not with Alfred. We had to convince him to come to the church. Finally, though, after a lot of pleading, he showed up.