Nina quite liked them. Perhaps one day she could remodel her own apartment so it less resembled a series of cellblocks and more the open, joyful home she wished she had.
They wound around to the main drawing room—the ornate parlor centered around a large fireplace could easily hold twice the hundred or so people who had come to Grandmother’s annual Christmas salon. Celeste de Vries would never hold something so pedestrian as a simple party. A salon, by unspoken decree, only included a specially curated group of people deemed worthy.
There was Violet, of course; Aunt Heather, Eric’s mother, and her husband; Celeste’s brother Rufus, and several of his children and their children; plus a few other distant de Vrieses and van Dusens. The other guests rounded out a veritable “Who’s Who” of Upper East Side society. These weren’t so much the local celebrities that generally populated Page Six (though a few did from time to time). No, these were old money, people with names like Astor and Vanderbilt. People Nina had known all her life. People her family had known for centuries.
But before they entered, Garrett stopped in the hall and cleared his throat. “This arrived for you, madam.”
He then produced an envelope. A crisply folded piece of cream-colored card stock with Nina’s name scrawled across the front in familiar curling letters.
Nina’s stomach leaped as she took it.
“Thank you, Garrett,” she said, then turned into the smaller parlor across the hall—a more private room that also had its own crackling fireplace. She set the baby, still snoozing in her carrier, to the ground and sank into one of the armchairs to read the note.
She knew what it was before she opened it. Giuseppe wasn’t given to extravagances, but he loved his stationery. How many small notes had he affixed to her papers when she was in his class, all embossed with one of his gold and red insignias? She had saved them all, and would at times take them out of a shoebox in her closet, where, on her worst days before the baby was born, she would sink to the ground under the swirl of hanging skirts and read them before crying herself to sleep. She hadn’t done that for a while, but something told her tonight might be different.
Cara,
Thank you for the kind letter. It was a wonderful surprise to hear your voice, if only on the page. I trust you are well in New York for the holidays and enjoying life as only one your age should.
I took my family back to the olive farm for my sabbatical this fall. Do you remember it? As soon as we arrived, I knew I never should have brought them. You are a golden ghost in the air, a beautiful dream that will haunt me in the grass until I die. This is our place. You are everywhere. In the trees. By the fire. Dancing in the vineyard. In every corner, I see you and all the things I should have said before you went away.
I miss you, principessa. This life is wrong without you. But it is a life I must have. After Christmas, I will return to Firenze, and I will sell the farm like my wife has always wanted. I will be a good father to my girls and try to remember the life I am supposed to live for them, not for myself. I will let the dreams of what might have been sleep, for that is the only place they may be real.
For this reason, I must ask that you do not follow me back to the city. Stay in America and live your own life. You gave me such beautiful dreams, principessa, but they can never be real. And I cannot allow a dream to ruin my family’s real life.
But tonight, one last time, I will drink this wine and eat these olives and think of the way you looked with the firelight in your face and hair. My own perfect Venus, alive in the night.
Con tutto il mio cuore,
Peppe
Nina read the letter once, twice over before she truly understood what it said. Then she looked back at the baby, who slept soundly in her seat, another firelight flickering over her chubby cheeks.
“You look like him,” Nina told her in a low voice.
It was true. The baby had blonde hair, but her eyes were as dark as the Arno, and her lips were as full as a ripe Italian plum. She was tiny and