“If you say so.”
“I’m sorry I got caught up in getting married. Who cares about the parties. The dress. A diamond ring.”
“Your family is in the jewelry business.”
Anina laughed. “Right. But it shouldn’t just be about the accessories that go with a commitment; it should be about the marriage.”
“You’re working with your grandfather?”
She nodded. “I’m learning the wheel.”
Paolo sat with Anina until the sun, the color of a pat of butter, began to melt into the sea. Every once in a while, he would turn to her in the light, and she’d forget why she had let him go. Her heart still leapt at the sight of him, but she couldn’t admit it. Not to him, anyway.
If Paolo knew that she still had feelings for him, he might have given up the job in Barcelona. But he no longer felt he had the right to ask her about her heart. He lost her trust and believed there was no building it back.
“I should go.” Paolo stood.
Anina walked him to the elevator. He got in.
“Paolo?”
She held the button that kept the doors open.
“Yes?” he said.
“Life is long.”
“Are you giving me hope?” He smiled.
“There’s always hope.” Anina let go of the button. The doors closed. Anina placed her hand on the watch fob. She unpinned it from her dress and held it up to her ear. She heard the gentle ticking of the gears. “Nonna!” she whispered. “It works!”
* * *
Nicolina offered to stay after she straightened the apartment and prepped the moka pot for breakfast the next morning, but Olimpio insisted she go home to Giorgio. Anina was already asleep in the guest room. For the first time since Matelda died, Olimpio was alone. He sat in his pajamas and reread the note Matelda had left for him along with the Speranza ruby.
Olimpio,
This is Papa’s manifesto. He wrote it the night he took the name Cabrelli. Will you print it up and give it to our children and the grandchildren? I forgot I had this and meant to share it. Papa was right. A family is only as strong as their stories.
Love you,
M.
MANIFESTO DE LA FAMIGLIA
Family. We are the barnyard, the circus and the stage, the forum, the playing field and the track. We are the structure, the architecture, and the stronghold. We are the comfort, the solace, and the dream. Our connection is our sustenance and hope. If the survival of the family is left to whim or chance, consider it neglect and the family dies at the root. We must put the family above work, play, and ambition. There must be a plan to grow and prosper. Life is less without family, it becomes a series of events, a bore, a litany of miseries and a slog toward loneliness. Without a common goal, productivity and industry are replaced with a slow decay followed by want. When the family fails, so goes the world.
Silvio Cabrelli
1947
Olimpio went on to read Silvio’s coda.
I have told my grandchildren the story of the elephant, which was told to me by Pietro Cabrelli, my father-in-law. He heard it from a man he met in India many years ago. The elephant died at the end of the story, but through the years, I changed the ending because it seemed to scare the children, so I let the elephant live. Dear family, you are the author of your destiny. In your hands is the ending of your story and the start of a new one each time a baby is born. God knows what He’s doing.
Olimpio folded the document and placed it back in the envelope.
Olimpio filled Argento’s kibble bowl and gave Beppe a snack bone. He grabbed one of Ida Casciacarro’s sesame cookies off a tray in the kitchen and nibbled on it as he went through the apartment and turned out the lights. He made his way up the stairs to their bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed and finished the cookie. He went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth. He performed the ritual without looking at himself in the mirror.
Olimpio returned to the bedroom. He folded the coverlet down to the end of the bed. He slipped out of his bedroom slippers and climbed into his side of the bed. He reached his hand over to Matelda’s side. He had kissed the same woman good night for fifty-four years, and now she was gone. All his life he had wondered what a broken heart felt like because he had never known its pain. Now he knew. He began to weep uncontrollably. After a while, he sat up and wiped the tears on the sleeves of his nightshirt. He heard Beppe scratching outside the door. He turned on the light. He got up and let the dog in, but strangely, Argento was behind him. The cat and dog had never slept in their bedroom. The dog had a bed under the stairs, and the cat, for all he knew, wandered through the house at night until she found a bookshelf to her liking.