Page 99 of Promised to the Don of Naples
A stubborn tear slid down my face. The nonna didn't remark on it, just went on:
"In 2015, in August, I saw it with these eyes." She pointed to her own black eyes. "Your father came to Capri with four men. Matteo was twenty-eight; he'd confronted his father days before in Palermo—he'd found out about the scheme with the Morettis, and he came to hide in my house. Your father called me and said: Adelina, give me back my son, or Lucia pays. Lucia was in Mondello, doing chemotherapy. I put Matteo in the car and handed him over. I watched your brother get into your father's car like that. Knowing, but not crying, because of his mother."
The breath went out of me as she spoke, trying to picture the scene.
"You saw it."
"I saw it."
"Does Luca know?"
"My grandson knows part of it." The nonna took up the cup again. "He knows Salvatore took Matteo from Capri. He doesn't know Matteo gave himself up to save Lucia. The one who knows that is you, now. And it'll be your decision whether to tell my grandson or not."
"Nonna," I murmured. "Why did you tell me this today?"
"Because a Moretti wife," she said, "doesn't marry in the dark."
I closed my eyes, feeling a second tear fall.
The nonna opened the drawer of the side table and took out a small black box, worn at the corners, and opened it.
Inside, a ring. Old gold, a square emerald, cut the old way.
"This was Marta's. My grandson's mother." The nonna took my right hand and put the ring on the ring finger. "You wear it today, with Lucia's earrings."
I looked at the emerald on my hand. My mother's emeralds hung cold at my ears.
"Two mothers," I said, low.
"Two mothers," the nonna confirmed. "You don't go to the altar alone, signora."
I cried. I cried openly, without hiding it, my hand over my mouth. The nonna didn't put her arms around me. She stayed there, in her armchair, the cane against her knee, and let me cry.
"Cry now, signora. Get to the church dry."
When I stopped, she stood and came to me with the cane. She kissed my forehead for a long time, and hard.
"Andiamo."
I went down the stairs with Marta's ring on my right hand and Lucia's earrings swaying.
Donna Beatrice was waiting in the hall. Black Sunday dress, a pearl brooch at her chest, and the cloth folded in three over her arm. When she saw me, she pressed her lips together.
"Signora."
I stopped in front of her. I remembered the envelope from lunch.
"Beatrice."
"Sì, signora."
"The envelope that came yesterday. What was it?"
"Don't think about that today."
"Va bene."
She squeezed my hand. Her hand trembled a little, but her voice didn't.
