Adriana Trigiani - Brava, Valentine

I imagine my grandfather looking down at me dressed in a dapper tuxedo like Fred Astaire, leaping over the clouds to music. I never saw my grandfather in a formal suit, only in work clothes and a cobbler’s apron.

“Do you ever think about Grandpop?”

“Sure. I talk about him with Dominic. And he talks about his first wife too. When you fall in love later in life, you marry the history of the person. And I think you know how I feel about my memories. They’re my treasure. And Dominic’s are his, too.”

“You know, those letters Roberta gave me helped me understand Grandpop. No wonder he was so sad sometimes-and so prickly. He had a rough childhood, losing his mother, and then his uncle.”

Gram nods. “He did.”

“But you were a good wife to him.”

“Not good enough. I couldn’t help him beat his sadness. You know, Valentine, this is the thing. You can fall in love with someone, and believe in that person, but it doesn’t mean that you can build a life together. I never got in there with your grandfather. I don’t know how else to say it. Dominic understands me-and it’s not complicated. It was so complicated with Michael. So complex.”

“It should be easy,” I say. “You know, I think I’ve found the perfect husband.”

“Really?” Gram turns to me, surprised.

“Gabriel Biondi. Gabe and I are like those gears on a Swiss movement watch. We spin in tandem like two interlocking gizmos without a glitch. We never fight. We don’t fuss. We work together beautifully in the shop. It’s just easy.”

The clouds move overhead, rippling like pattern paper. The edges of the horizon over New Jersey, beyond the river, flutter like ruffles. June, high in the heavens, places the moon in the sky like a silver button on a blue-velvet boot. “June will never leave you,” Gram says.

“I’m counting on it.”

Gram and Dominic went out for dinner at Da Silvano’s, where the stars go. Gram used to eat there back in the 1970s when it first opened, and she wants to share the cuisine with Dominic, and hopefully find some native Italians for him to talk to.

Gabriel is at the Carlyle. Tonight, he is going to give the big boss a month’s notice. He has decided to focus on pattern cutting at the Angelini Shoe Shop as his new career, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

Christmas is ten days away, and I’m trying to keep my spirits up. I sit here on the sofa, all the lights out except the ones that twinkle in the tree. I inhale the fresh scent of the blue spruce. I imagine the old familiar holiday rituals will comfort me this year. 2010 has been a year of loss and change.

I pull out my sketch pad and flip it open to a new, clean page. I have an idea for a new shoe for yoga practitioners. Of course, I’ll call it the June Lawton . I poise my pencil over the bare page. But, instead of beginning with the clean lines of the vamp, I write,

December 13, 2010

Dear Gianluca,

I hope this letter finds you well. Your health and happiness are never far from my mind.

Dominic and Gram are out to dinner, Gabriel is at the Carlyle, and I’m here alone for the first time since June died. I have had a lot of time to think about her and the things she taught me. I also have been thinking about how she lived. June was truly independent. She made a life for herself on her own terms. She had a way of knowing what was right for her. This is the big lesson that I’ve taken away from her death. I have been thinking about what’s right for me and how I should live going forward.

I ruined everything with you. By now, I’m sure you’ve found a good woman who loves you and wants everything in life that you do. I know it is too late for us, but now I understand all the things you said to me, and the meaning behind your words. I resisted those words because I wasn’t ready to hear what you had to say. I said I heard you, but I did not. I was too busy talking and finding ways to push you away because I believed you’d wake up one morning and see who I really was…and run.

I have pushed so hard against what I come from, and at the same time, I’m compelled to re-create it. I have never looked at my life as my own, but rather, part of a whole, which includes my family. But this year, I have seen that the boundaries in the Roncalli family were never drawn, that we rely on one another, which is good, but we also blame one another when we fail (not so good). There must be a way to invent a life that is all my own and I hope I’m learning how to do that. The first step is writing you this letter. I don’t want you to think of me as the petulant girl I was in Buenos Aires. I’m trying to grow up, and I think losing June has forced me to look at myself.

I don’t want to get to the end of my life without having loved. I’ve played at love and pretended to love, but I’ve never given myself over to my life in a way that made it my own. I was waiting for someone to come along and show me the way. Now, I realize that everyone has shown me the way. My parents, in their crazy way, see things through, even when they’d rather not. My brother, in failing, showed me it’s okay, the world doesn’t end when you screw up, and maybe letting someone you love forgive you makes you both a little stronger. Gram has shown me that you can live with your history but still experience a new life inside the old one. Well, I could go on and on. And then, of course, there’s you.

It’s hard for me to admit that I pushed you away. I like to think that you left me when you saw that I didn’t have any idea what I was doing with you. I hid behind my work, hoping that a higher purpose (Art!) would fill me up more than love. I can count on art, right? It won’t let me down because it comes from me, I create it: from my whims and fancy. But you were right. There is no art without love. Only love can open someone up to the possibilities of living and creating art. And I thought it was paint-and pencils and this sketch book and my ideas that inspired me to make art. But it’s not any of those things. It’s love. And you. It was always you.

I’m going to send this letter Federal Express International. I’m going to imagine the white truck as it motors up the hills of Tuscany in the rain. I’m going to imagine the deliveryman knocking on your shop door, and you inside, in your apron, cutting a yard of expensive kid leather with precision. And how you’ll scowl because the knock at the door interrupted your process. And then, I’m going to imagine you sitting on the work bench and opening this envelope and reading these words. And I hope when you’re done, when you get to The End, that you will know that I truly understand all that I’ve lost. I can only wish for that-and for you to have a Merry Christmas, a Buon Natale as you say in your beautiful hills.

Valentina

Gabriel and I sit across from one another at the table. We have signed up to make dessert for the Feast of the Seven Fishes, our Christmas Eve tradition. Tess and Charlie are hosting the whole family at their home this year. Gabriel wants to go all out, which means thorough planning and a shopping trip to Little Italy for supplies.

Gabriel snaps his fingers. “Hello?” He looks at me. “Could we focus here? I have a week to get this dessert for a cast of thousands together. I need your help.”

“I’m here,” I tell him. But I’m not. I’d like to skip Christmas entirely this year, and just sit home alone and weep under the tree.

“June would not like this. She would be peeved that you’re still a mess.”

“I know.” Tears fill my eyes. “It isn’t just June.”

“You didn’t hear from Gianluca yet?”

I shake my head sadly.