“The workers will appreciate you taking an interest.”
Zeno nodded, then got to his feet. “I’ll leave you to it.” He walked out of the barn, and I followed behind. As Zeno walked past the paddock, Nico and Rosa trotted over. He went to them. Nico gave Zeno his attention for about a minute before walking off, but Rosa stayed close.
Zeno patted her neck, then moved toward the gate. Just as he reached my garden, he stopped in his tracks. He glanced at me over his shoulder with a strange expression on his face. “That gray horse? Is she an Andalusian?”
“Yes,” I replied, wondering why he seemed so curious about her breed. I had never known Zeno to care about horses in his youth.
An unreadable look flashed across his face. “Is something wrong?” I asked.
Zeno’s eyes tightened, his shoulders tense, but he placed a smile on his lips and shook his head. “No, I just remembered something that’s all. Something particularly interesting.”
With that Zeno walked away, but I didn’t move. I didn’t like that strange look in his eye as he left.
Feeling the rain beginning to fall, I finished as much of my work as I could before the heavens opened. By the time I had arrived back home, a storm raged outside. I knew if it held up, Caresa wouldn’t be able to come here. She was out today until late, and I didn’t want her to have to walk to me in the rain.
I lit my fire, made myself something to eat and then walked into my bedroom. I sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at the nightstand. My reading was better now. The things Caresa had taught me had helped me more than anything had in my life. I still struggled; I knew that. Writing was still hard. The pen in my hand never felt right, but I practiced every day. It was . . . improving, but not great. I would never dare write anything to her yet. But maybe one day.
I opened the drawer and saw my father’s letter inside. I took it out and laid it on my lap. My hands were damp, and my heart fired a canon in my chest when I looked down at the envelope, and after focusing on it for a while, saw my father’s writing.
I saw and read my father’s writing.
I choked on a sob when, for the first time, I understood what these once-jumbled letters said. They spelled my name. On my lap, before me, was my father’s writing, spelling my name.
“Papa,” I whispered, running the tip of my finger over the cursive lettering. “I read my name,” I added, as though he could hear me. “I’ve . . . I’ve met someone, Papa.” I smiled through the tears that filled my eyes as I brought up Caresa’s face in my mind. “She taught me that I wasn’t slow after all. My brain just works differently to most. And she’s helping me, Papa. I can read some now. It’s slow going, and at times I get frustrated, but I can see the words better. Caresa has helped me learn to read.”
I brushed the falling tears from my cheeks, and the letter in my hand shook. I wanted to read it, I wanted to finally know what was inside, but . . . I took a deep breath. I wasn’t ready yet. I knew that. The letter was long, and my reading wasn’t perfect yet. When I read my father’s last words to me, I wanted to be able to read them without having to concentrate on each and every word.
And if I was being honest, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. This letter was the final thing my father would ever say to me. Even though he’d been gone for all of these months, I treasured this letter. Because after this . . . there would be no more him. He would be truly gone.
Visions of his last few hours filled my head, and I couldn’t breathe . . .
I walked to his bed and sat on the edge. The cancer had ravaged his body. He had always been small, but now his slight frame was withered and weak. His dark eyes that had always been so bright were dull and tired. He could barely lift his hand to hold onto mine.
His breathing was slow and labored, and the doctor had told me it would be soon. My father hadn’t wanted to die in hospital. He had wanted to come home and pass on to the next life on his land. This land was everything to him.
He was everything to me.
His hand trembled in mine as I held it tightly.
He coughed. “How did . . . the work go today? Is . . . everything almost . . . ready for the planting in the . . . spring?”
“Yes, Papa,” I replied, reaching out to prop his pillows higher under his back when he began to cough and struggle to breathe. “Everything will be good. I have planned everything just as you taught me. We will bring in a good harvest this year.”
My father’s eyes seemed to glaze with sorrow. “You will bring in a good harvest, Achille. This year it is all down to you.”
A pit carved in my stomach and a hole burrowed in my heart. I nodded my head when my words failed me. I didn’t want to lose him, I didn’t want to say goodbye, but he was too sick. I didn’t want him suffering anymore.
I looked at the picture my father held in his other hand, tucked safely against his side. My mother. My mother smiling to the camera as she stood next to her horse. She had just won a dressage championship, and anyone could see in her face that she was happy.
“She will be the one to greet me,” my father said, clearly seeing me staring at the picture of the woman I never knew. “There is no one else who I would have welcoming me home but her.” My father smiled, tears filling his eyes. “I imagine heaven to be much like our small vineyard at Bella Collina. A place where I can still tend the vines as your mother rides in the paddock behind me, dancing her horse to the sound of Verdi.”
I squeezed his hand; my sorrow was too much of a barrier for my words. My father tuned his face to me. “And I will tell her of her son. I will tell her of the man he became and how proud she should be of him. How proud I am of him. A good man who has a big heart. A man who is kind and caring, and the best winemaker I ever knew.”
“Papa,” I whispered sadly.
“It is true, Achille. You have surpassed anything I could have taught you. You are more talented and natural at this life than any man I’ve ever known.” My father shifted and gripped my hand as tightly as he could—his touch was nothing, proving how weak he truly was.
“Achille, when I am gone, you must go out more. You are tied to this land just as surely as I am, but I also had your mother and you. This life is hard at times, and you have the ability to love so deeply. There is a woman out there for you, son. Your split-apart, the woman your soul will remember, the one you will love your whole life.” He tugged me closer. “Promise me, Achille. Promise me you will live.”
“I promise.”
“And learn to read and write. Challenge yourself to learn. You love literature. You love books. And I think . . . I think I have sheltered you too much. I should have insisted you got the help you needed. I should have insisted the king came through on his word.”
My father coughed again, but this time, true fear ran through me. It was worse than before, and I could see him fighting to stay conscious. But he never let go of my hand. Even as his eyes rolled, fighting sleep, he said, “You live a lonely life, Achille. And that is no way to be. When . . . when you find her, be sure you fight for her. Promise me . . . promise me . . .”
“I promise,” I choked out, and that answer brought a smile to my father’s face. As his eyes closed, for what would be the final time, he whispered, “Your mother will smile when I tell her that, son . . . your mother will smile . . .”
As I came back to the present, tears were streaming down my face. A few hours later, with me sitting by his side, my father had taken his last breath and joined my mother, his missing half.
I had sat with him awhile after that, unable to move from his side. I knew when I moved that it would mean he was truly gone. And I wasn’t sure I could face the world without him in it. I wasn’t sure what our small cottage would feel like without his music, his coffee, his voice reading aloud from his precious books.
Then, weeks later, my father’s attorney brought me a small inheritance check from a pension I didn’t even know he had, and a single handwritten letter.
The letter I was still too scared to read.
Taking a deep breath, I stared out at the torrential rain beyond the window. I placed the letter back in its drawer to read another day. I stood from the bed, my father’s passing still so clear in my mind, and hated the silence that filled my empty cottage. Every day, for the last five days, I would work, then Caresa would come to me at night.