I needed my father right now. I needed to hear his voice. I needed his help . . . I had nowhere else to turn. My reading had improved so much over the last month. And I . . . I knew I could do this.
I had to do this.
My fingers trembled as I opened the drawer and took out the envelope. I took in a long, deep breath, but it took me four more inhales and exhales before I could open the back and pull the four pages from their home.
A wave of emotion overwhelmed me, and I had to glance away. I closed my eyes and imagined my father’s face. Smiling at me as he tried to teach me to read and write. Telling me that I could do it. Telling me that I could do anything if I only tried.
With that image in my head, I steadied my hand and let my eyes meet the page. And so I read, trying to make his memory proud . . .
My dearest son,
If you are reading this, then know one thing: I loved you. Most fathers love their children, but you have always been special to me. You were a gift I never expected to be given. But better than that, you exceeded anything I could ever dream.
You may have wondered why I would write you a letter. You may have wondered, why, with the challenges you face, I would be so cruel. But if you are reading this letter, I know it is because you have sought out the help you always should have been given. The help I should have moved heaven and earth to get you.
And know that as your eyes read these words, I am bursting with pride. You are the best winemaker I have ever known, one of the greatest people—with your kind heart and soul—but your reading always held you back. I failed in not taking you into the world more, instead staying close to our vineyard. I know, that even when you read this, what your every day will entail. You are a man who will live a simple life. You will always get by because you always have done. You order your life in a way that you don’t have to read or write. You will live off the land or rely on Eliza and Sebastian like we always did, so that your trips into town are limited and you don’t have to worry about appearing slow or strange to strangers.
And I confess that I had a hand in that. Not because I didn’t want you to better yourself, I did, but because I was so out of my depth with your challenges. But I was also protecting you. Making sure we stayed at the vineyard, just me and my son.
And that was for a good reason too.
You may be wondering what that reason was. And I will get to that, Achille, I promise. But first, there are some things you do not know about your mother, about your mother and me. Things that I kept from you to protect you. To protect your mother’s memory.
Your mother was everything to me. Abrielle was the very reason I breathed. She was the dawn and the dusk and all the hours in between. We were soul mates, split-aparts, but we were not without our problems.
You see, Achille, when I met your mother, we were young. The moment I laid my eyes on her, time stopped. When I met her in Orvieto, singing Christmas hymns around the tree on Christmas Eve, with the snow falling around her beautiful face, I knew I had found home. Abrielle glanced up from her hymnbook and looked across the tree, and I knew she had found her home in me too. People like to say that love at first sight is a myth, that instant love is for the pages of a fantasy book.
But it isn’t. I lived it. Your mother and I were proof of that fact.
We were married two months later, and she moved into my home at the vineyard. Your mother was a dressage champion, and she quickly became the standout rider in King Santo’s dressage and show jumping team.
She loved her life, playing out her passion, and I loved mine. It wasn’t long before we wanted a child of our own. We wanted a child to complete our family . . .
But that wasn’t meant to be. We tried, Achille. For years we tried, and despite the love we had for one another, the fact that we were not producing a child became a plague between us. The depression your mother sank into took her to a lonely and desperate place. A place to which I could not follow.
We sought out help, answers to what the problem was. And the findings were straightforward. The problem was me. I couldn’t have children, Achille. I, the man who loved your mother with everything that I was, could not give my soul mate the one thing she desired most.
I couldn’t give her you.
I know you, son. I know as you read this you will question if you have understood my words correctly. And you have. I couldn’t have children, and my heart broke as I helplessly watched your mother drift further and further away from me, drowning in waves of sadness.
We lost our way. We lived together, slept beside each other every night, but we weren’t okay, we weren’t us. We were lost in the heavy rain . . . and that’s when your mother was taken on a championship tour with the king.
I couldn’t leave the vineyard because of the harvest. And she didn’t want to stay. So she went. She went and won every competition she entered, becoming renowned in the equine community and acclaimed in her sport. But her victories, her beauty and her spirit also managed to win the king’s affection. In that year, King Santo barely came home, instead choosing to travel with the team. The queen stayed behind with the young prince.
King Santo never came home because of your mother, Achille. King Santo became infatuated with my Abrielle, and, it still pains me to say, she became affectionate toward him too.
I do not blame your mother, Achille. She was young and sad and far from home. And although he never held her heart as I did, I knew that she loved him too. When your mother came home she told me everything at once. Her tears were thick and full as she confessed her infidelity.
It took me a while, but I forgave her. I loved her. She was my split-apart. And I was hers. And despite the crack in my heart her affair caused, it brought your mother back to me. Gone was the pain, and gone was the sadness. I had my Abrielle back. I chose to forgive her. Many wouldn’t, but it was my heart and my pain, and I chose the heavy route of forgiveness.
She won her final championship, then came home for good. She told the king they were over, and I finally had her back.
Then a month later we discovered she was pregnant. It wasn’t a medical miracle. We both knew how she was with child, and it wasn’t my doing. We knew whose baby she carried. I struggled at first, son. It was a dagger to my heart. But when you were born, all of that pain became filled with the greatest of light. When I held you in my arms and you looked into my eyes, I knew I was your papa. You were my son.
And then my Abrielle died. Right in front of me, she died with tears of sadness in her eyes. But not before she told you she loved you and that I was your father. She knew I would love you. She knew you would be safe. She believed her death, the reason we were being torn apart, was because she was being punished. She thought death and not getting to know her son was the punishment for straying.
I never believed that. And I still don’t. Because nothing, not even death, could take her from me. She stayed with me through you. You looked so much like her, son. Your mannerisms, your shyness, your kindness were all your mother. Though you carried your father’s eyes. His height and his broadness. The older you got, the more I saw him within you.
And then you befriended Zeno. You became best friends with your brother, as if the fates had pushed you together, a winemaker’s son and the prince— as if destiny had always known you should have been close. And you loved Zeno like a brother. My shy little boy had found someone he could be himself with. You cherished his visits as you played out on the track.
Then one day the king turned up to my vineyard and saw you both playing in the field beyond. It was the first time I had seen him since your mother died. One look into my eyes and he knew I knew about their affair. He knew we had had a son. And when you came running toward the vineyard, with Zeno in tow, I saw the moment he knew you were his. You and Zeno, laughing side by side. Similar in both hair color and eyes. Same height, same build, same smile.
Both Santo’s.
He pulled me aside and demanded the truth. So I told him. It was the scariest day of my life. I feared he would take you from me. I saw in his eyes that he still loved your mother, still grieved for her. We shared in that pain. And then here you were, their perfect mix. A piece of Abrielle living on his land, with his blood running through your veins.
King Santo returned to the mansion with Zeno. Days later, Zeno was sent back to Florence, and a week after that, the queen returned to Austria. She never came back.