Adriana Trigiani - Brava, Valentine

“Thank you.”

“As a general rule, you should never write love letters filled with imagery and then send a swatch of shoe leather. The sentiments in letters should delight and build until the woman is so enthralled she cannot imagine the world without you.”

“Ah.”

I let go of him and swim off into the deep end, into the blue water.

The night air on my face is cold compared to the warmth of the water below. But the contrast is lovely; it’s waking me up in every way, from the long flight, from my anxieties about meeting Roberta, and from my ambivalence about getting involved with a man who might take me away from my work, when my career needs my undivided attention.

Gianluca meets me at the deep end. “Are you hungry?”

“Not really. Are you?”

“No.”

“So, what should we do?”

He smiles, and that’s his answer.

Good answer.

Room service has left a good-night tray with a silver service espresso pot, cream and sugar, and a plate of fresh fruit: mango slices, strawberries, and kiwis, artfully arranged like a sunburst. There’s a polished sterling silver bowl filled with chunks of fragrant dark chocolate. There is also a fine bone china platter of tiny almond cookies sprinkled with candied orange bits. A small gold card with a handwritten note from the porter is propped on the tray. It says: “Complimentary.”

“Why are you laughing?” Gianluca wants to know.

“The way this night is going, I’m getting everything I want.”

“That is how it should be.”

“And what do you want, Gianluca?”

“Do you have to ask?” he says.

“Yes, I do. I don’t like questions answered with questions. Have you ever heard of…show, don’t tell?”

He thinks for a moment. “No.”

“Well, it means that I prefer to express my feelings with action, not words.” I climb onto his lap, and this time, unlike on Gram’s wedding night in Arezzo, I don’t withhold my feelings.

“I like both. Action and words.” He kisses my neck.

“But I’m not a poet, I’m a shoemaker.”

“A good shoemaker is a poet,” he says.

“Right.” I kiss him.

“Do you think you can find the words tonight?” he whispers. “To tell me how do you feel about me?”

I take his face in my hands. “I think I can’t describe it.”

“Try.”

“Okay, I never imagined you before I met you. You’re the kind of man who ends up with women who wear high heels and aprons.”

He laughs.

“I didn’t see myself with a man who had children, or was older, or who had a big life before he met me. And by big life, I mean a long marriage.”

“I understand.”

“But, and here’s what I pray for, I pray to stay open to the possibilities of everything in life. I also hope to never limit my choices by my own prejudice-or the limitations of my upbringing. But, here’s where I need your help. I was surprised by my feelings for you, too.”

“Why?”

“When I met Orsola-and she’s as fine a woman as any I’ve ever met, and you raised her-I could see that you are a wonderful father. Most women have to wait to find out if a man will be a good father. If they ever do. But with you, I knew right away.”

“Orsola is the best part of my life.”

“That’s very obvious. You’ve been a good father. As a daughter myself, I don’t think there is anything more important than that. It says more than anything else I know about you, who you really are. But here’s the problem…”

Gianluca waits as I find the words to explain my feelings. At Gram’s wedding, when I was helping corral my nieces and nephews, it dawned on me that I might like my own children to chase and coddle, to correct and defend-that it wasn’t enough to be an aunt with an extra pair of hands. And then, later, when I held Bret’s daughter Piper in my arms, I felt the yearning that can only be instigated by the embrace of a child holding so tight, she almost became a part of me.

I have walked past Bleecker Park, filled with children, hundreds of times and never looked inside the fence to see what was going on. I tuned out their laughter and loud yells, their games and their joy. But lately, on my coffee run, I stop and observe them. I find myself standing at the fence, wondering if this exotic zoo is a place I will visit, or will I actually live inside someday? Will I ever be one of those mothers chasing her four-year-old down the ramp on the beat-up public scooter that the neighborhood kids share? After a while I check my watch and realize a mound of work waits for me back at the shop. On the way back, I consider what a child would mean to me in my life. I usually dismiss the notion once I’m back at the cutting table and tackling my to-do list. I put motherhood out of my mind until the next time I find myself outside the gates of Bleecker Park.

There’s a moment for every woman who loves her family and embraces their good qualities while attempting to negotiate the mania, when she decides that she might want a family of her own to love and shape. It’s only natural. I’m in my mid-thirties, and time tells me I must think about these things, or make the decision to brush past them and build a life without a family of my own.

I shape my question to Gianluca carefully because, depending upon his answer, I only want to ask it once.

“Why would a man who already has everything I hope to have someday be interested in retracing those steps and starting over, building a new life? Last year in Italy, you said you weren’t interested in having another child. Have your feelings changed?”

Gianluca inhales deeply. My heart races; I realize I’m afraid of his answer. He pulls me close. He says, “That would depend upon you.”

“It’s all up to me?”

“I think so. A baby is the woman’s choice,” he says. “I don’t know how else to say it. Why do you speak of children tonight?”

“I went to a friend’s house recently. A birthday party. And there was a baby there who reached for me, and when she fell into my arms, I felt something I had never felt before-a connection, I guess. A possibility of some sort. Maybe it’s my age. Or maybe it was just that particular little girl. I don’t know.”

“Or maybe you are thinking about life in a different way now,” he says gently. He kisses me. The kiss is like the soft wax seal on the envelope of a letter. There is something final about it-for him. Then he says, “Maybe you are ready for more.”

The concept of more for a woman who has to stretch to reach for enough is almost unthinkable. I have no idea what I deserve, because I never know what to ask for. Gianluca has already had the life that I think I want. He already knows how the story ends. Gianluca begins a second life tonight, a new act, a new phase, as I move into my first one. I have no idea what to expect.

I try to let go of the old habits and prejudices I have about love in order to make room for the mystery. I don’t have any control over what will happen. I’d like to know where this is going because I don’t want to get hurt again, but I don’t have any control over that either. I have to accept that I don’t know where this leads-I have to be bold about it and move toward happiness and trust that everything will work out the way it is supposed to.

“Do you want to be with me?” he asks.

The truth is, he already has my answer; he had it in Arezzo in February. He knows that I want him, but do I want all that goes with my desire for him?

Love builds in a series of small realizations , he wrote.

Maybe tonight will be one of them.

Gianluca moves toward me and takes my hands. The same shivers I had on the balcony in Capri, at the church in Arezzo, from the accidental way his hand brushed mine when we reached for the same panel of fabric at the mill in Prato, ripple through my body.