Page 17 of Mario
He takes my coat without asking. He has worked for my family long enough to know when I want conversation and when I only want efficiency.
Tonight, I want both less than usual.
Inside, the house is warm and quiet. Dark wood floors, high ceilings, cream walls. Old oil paintings I had brought from Naples mixed with newer pieces because the present matters just as much as the past.
A wide staircase rises from the foyer, its banister polished by hands that belonged to other families long before mine.
There are shoes near the side entrance that belong to Tomasso because he leaves them wherever he pleases, no matter how many times he is reminded. A stack of books on the hall table that belong to Matteo because he reads three at once and claims he knows exactly where he is in each one. A half-empty espresso cup near the library door that one of them will deny abandoning if I ask.
These things should irritate me.
Sometimes they do.
Tonight, they do not.
They will all be gone and put away by morning, regardless. I could hire more staff who would clean each speck of dust as it falls, but then my home would feel less like one.
That is how I grew up.
It is not how I choose to live now that the choice is mine.
Voices come from the back of the house.
I follow them past the formal sitting room no one uses, past the dining room large enough to seat twenty, and into the kitchen.
The kitchen is the least formal room in the house and, because of that, the one my sons prefer. Large island, dark stone counters, copper pans hung more for use than decoration. Windows looking out toward the garden, where the lights cast squares over the winter-bare trees.
Matteo sits at the island in a dark sweater, a laptop open in front of him and a book facedown beside it.
Tomasso stands near the refrigerator wearing black trousers, a shirt half-buttoned, and a Negroni in one hand.
They are identical only to people who do not know them.
Same height, same dark hair, same Conti eyes. Same sharp cheekbones and strong jaws inherited from my side of the family.
But Matteo carries stillness in his bones. He watches before he speaks, thinks before he moves, holds his cards until the other man forgets he is playing a game.
Tomasso moves as if the world should be pleased to see him coming.
He smiles faster, talks easier, and walks into a room like the doors were made to open for him.
Four minutes separate them.
Some days, it feels like four generations.
Tomasso looks up first. “Papà.”
Matteo glances at me over the rim of his laptop. “You’re late.”
“I was working.”
“You’re always working,” Tomasso says.
“I could say the same to you, but it would be a lie.”
Matteo’s mouth curves.
Tomasso presses a hand to his chest. “This is how I’m greeted in my own home?”
