Adriana Trigiani - Brava, Valentine

We need to talk, but I don’t know how to broach the subject. It’s too painful, or maybe I just don’t know what to say. And once we get past the awkward acknowledgment that I know and he knows, what’s to be done? Even if we do talk about her , I hold no sway with Alfred, so any advice I might give him would be ignored. I have to do something, though, because it’s affecting our day-to-day lives in the shop. When we’re working, it’s obvious his mind wanders and is clearly not on the job at hand, while mine returns to the same subject over and over again: How could you do this to your family, Alfred? How could you?

Gabriel sets the table for breakfast while I open my e-mail on the laptop.

The first message that grabs my eye is from Roberta Angelini. The subject line reads:

I Believe We Are Family

I open the e-mail. Roberta Angelini of Buenos Aires knows of Michel Angelini. She writes that she has information that would be “of interest” to me.

What an odd phrase to use, as though she’s daring me to open doors that have been closed for generations. But I have more than a passing interest in understanding why there was a schism in my family a hundred years ago, and why the rupture has been buried for so long.

Going through Gram’s boxes, I have learned that our family history has been recorded in ledgers, legal contracts, and sentimental letters marking important passages and dates. They do not, however, tell the whole story. There is no record of the reasons behind the decisions made in the documents. There are gaps, and omissions. My great-grandfather wrote his own brother right out of the family story. But why?

You would think that estrangements that occurred a hundred years ago are irrelevant, until I walk into my own shop. I still can’t get along with my own brother, and there are times, when I fight with Alfred, that the wound seems ancient. Maybe the answer lies in the past.

After all, history is the energy that flows through our work in the shop. Everything I create is based on the designs my great-grandfather left behind; wouldn’t it also stand true that we also carry certain behaviors forward when dealing with one another?

I IM Roberta. “What do you do?” I click send.

A few moments pass. I wonder if she’ll give me the brush-off. Then, an instant message pops up from Roberta.

“I operate and own the family business,” she writes.

“What business?

“We manufacture men’s shoes. We’re the Caminito Shoe Company.”

Roberta types in the name of her company, just as I do my own. A chill goes through me. “Gabe, you won’t believe it. Roberta makes shoes.”

Gabriel sits down next to me and reads the e-mail exchange. “This is crazy.”

I type: “Would love to discuss everything with you. May I call, or do you prefer e-mail?”

Roberta types: “Send me your questions, and then we’ll talk. I have a new baby, and my hours are difficult.”

I exit out of e-mail and click into Google. I type in: “Shoe Manufacturing in Buenos Aires.” I type in “Caminito Shoe Company.” A series of articles about Argentinian shoe manufacturers pops up. My hands shake as I type.

“I can’t believe it. I have a cousin who makes shoes, too!”

“Everybody has a twin, you know. Maybe she’s yours. Northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere-separated by the equator. I wish we’d found your twin in Rio, though-I always wanted to go to Carnival.”

“Sorry, I wouldn’t care if she had a mill on the moon.”

Gabriel places a cup of coffee with a small scone next to the computer.

“For me?” I place the pressed linen napkin on my lap.

“If you’re going to dig up family secrets, you need to eat.”

“You’re better than a husband.”

“Or a wife. Deciding to keep the Minton china made me feel British. I just had to whip up some scones.” Gabriel places the jam in front of my plate.

I nibble the buttery fresh biscuit. “You should open a bakery.”

“I’ve thought about it.” Gabriel pours me a cup of coffee and then one for himself.

“Can we talk?”

Gabriel sits. “I’ll talk about anything-including NASCAR, which I know nothing about-I just don’t want to talk about Alfred.”

“I’m sorry. I’m obsessed. But it’s because I don’t know what to do.”

“Do nothing. You can’t be sure you saw what you saw.”

“Oh, I saw it.”

“Okay, for the thousandth time, let’s say it was what you thought. That they were kissing. What if it was the first time they kissed?”

“What difference would that make?”

“A lot. Nothing puts the brakes on a budding affair like getting caught in an illicit lip-lock. Put yourself in Alfred’s shoes. The only thing worse than your sister catching you fooling around is your wife. I can’t imagine that the Redhead and your brother didn’t talk later and say, ‘This was God telling us to stop.’”

“You watch too many Lifetime movies.”

“I know,” he says.

“The tension with Pamela makes sense now. She calls the shop all the time. She can never find him. He forgets to show up for stuff at the school. He’s late. And he hides behind the job here. He uses me and the shoes as an excuse.”

“So what?” Gabriel shrugs.

“I don’t like it.”

“Oh, I think you like it a lot. You finally have something on that brother of yours who never did right by you.”

“That’s not true. I didn’t want to find out that my brother was this kind of a guy. I’m very sad about it. And mostly sad about it because he tortured my father emotionally all these years for doing the exact same thing!”

“That’s their business.”

“Yeah, but the rest of us were dragged into it.”

“Okay, look, I’ve known your brother almost as long as I’ve known you. I’ve always thought he was a little stiff, and I never liked the way he treated you-but I never pegged him as a bad guy. A superior guy? Yes. He was always a snob. And he never failed at anything. Well, he didn’t until he left his job at the Bank of All Money.”

“He was let go.” I correct Gabriel.

“Got it. The only difference between a vice president and a receptionist is that when a vice president gets fired, he gets to spin it and say he left first-they do not extend the same courtesy to the working class. We are, simply put, shit-canned and shown the door.”

“Got it.”

“What you don’t get is that at the age of forty-this is the first time your brother has been shown the door. He has had an enchanted life up until now. And that’s worse than taking your lumps all the way through, like the rest of us. We are used to disappointment. We know failure. We not only expect the other shoe to drop, we’re there to catch it when it does. We know what it takes to come back from a blow. Alfred really hasn’t been tested. And guess what? Now, he’s been tested. And he’s scrambling.”

“I know. And I actually feel sorry for him.”

“You know what? I do too. The man is in a pickle. He looks at his life with the wife and the kids and the house in Jersey that costs a fortune-that he’s always been able to pay for, and now he can’t. Now everything will change. He’s looking at cleaning the pool himself, and mowing the lawn himself, and asking Skinny Minnie to go out and get a job to help out, which he never had to do before, and the guy feels like he’s been asked to put his balls in a shoe bag. Okay? Your brother is falling apart as he’s trying to hold it all together.”

“As smart as he is, he didn’t see it coming. The collapse. The banking disaster.”

“Oh, they all saw it, they just didn’t believe it. They didn’t want to believe it. And why would they? Who would want to believe that the money would ever stop! And you know, it killed him to have to come here and work with you.”