WOULD THIS WORK?
Sylvie hoped so.
But how had Enzo figured out what she was up to? Sylvie thought she was being so stealthy, and all along he knew she was trying to sway his decision about selling the estate. So much for her secretiveness.
But maybe this was better. He knew where she stood on the sale. Why keep it a secret? If someone vocalized their opposition to the sale, perhaps he’d rethink his decision. Not that her opinion was that important to him or anything. Still, he might listen to her, if she could do it the right way.
It wasn’t until he mentioned he had been packing things that she realized there were photos and mementos missing from the main house. Now she knew where they’d gone. Enzo was slowly and steadily removing signs of the Bartolini family from the estate—like some sort of human eraser. She had to wonder if by removing the physical things if it would remove whatever memories were attached to them. Was it really that easy to turn your back on the past?
It was midmorning by the time Sylvie made it to the winery. She’d intended to be there much earlier, but she’d gotten caught up finding a new venue for an upcoming wedding. It broke her heart to turn away business, but Enzo wasn’t giving her much option.
When she stepped into the winery, she found Enzo making notes on his digital tablet. “Sorry I’m late. I had some work that needed doing.”
“If you don’t have time for this we could cancel—”
“No.” She shook her head. “I can manage everything.” She glanced around at the bare walls. They were like canvases just waiting to be adorned with color. “I like it here.”
“You do?”
She nodded. “I don’t know why. Maybe because it’s so different from the main house. Whereas the house is cozy and warm, this room is huge—” she gazed up at the two-story ceilings “—and it has an industrial feel with the metallic tanks. I don’t know. I just like it.”
Enzo glanced around as if trying to see it the way she did. “I spent a lot of time down here as a kid. This was the best room to hide in when playing hide-and-seek with my sisters. They were afraid of the big tanks so they didn’t venture in here much.”
She smiled as she imagined Enzo as a small child. “So what you’re saying is that you cheated.”
“I did not. I won fair and square. They could have come in here, if they’d wanted.”
“Uh-huh.” She continued to smile as she shook her head. “And your father didn’t mind you playing in here.”
“He minded. But he didn’t know everything that went on.”
“So you were sneaky, too?”
His dark brows drew together. “Hey. I don’t think I like the picture you’re painting of me as a child.”
“Just calling it like I see it.” She laughed at his look of outrage.
“I definitely don’t want you talking to the reporter.” He turned, setting the tablet on the worktable. He retrieved a utility knife and moved off to the side of the table where there was a stack of cardboard boxes. He sliced open the tape on the top of one.
“I could give them a more balanced story,” she said, enjoying this bit of banter. It’d been far too long since they’d had this much fun together. This day was definitely looking up. “With what I’m learning about you, they could do an exposé about the real man behind the image.”
His brows drew together. “What image?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The handsome winemaker with an award-winning touch.”
His frown lines smoothed as a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “I wouldn’t give up your wedding work. Journalism definitely isn’t your calling.”
“What? I liked that tag line. Maybe this is better—Sexy Winemaker Wins Big.”
“First, who is this sexy person? And second, it wasn’t that big.”
“And who’s being modest now?”
He didn’t answer her as he lined up the framed prints on the table. “These are the photos we had hung in here for the tours that give a brief tutorial of the winemaking process.”
She moved next to him. She gazed down at the photos that she’d seen numerous times in the past, but this time she saw them differently. Instead of telling the story of how grapes were turned into wine, she saw the story of Enzo’s past.
In the first photo was a picture of a woman picking grapes. She was smiling brightly while holding a cluster of grapes. Sylvie didn’t need to be told; it was clear it was his mother. Carla Bartolini had been a beautiful woman, just like her daughters.
Sylvie made her way down the table, looking at each photo. Enzo quietly followed her. She wanted to ask him what he was thinking but she didn’t want to disturb the moment.
She paused in front of the photo of a man in this very room. Though she’d never met Aldo Bartolini, she knew without a doubt it was Enzo’s father. The resemblance was that great.
There were other photos of Enzo and his sisters when they were young. In one framed photo, the entire family was standing in front of four large holding tanks. “You all look so happy.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” he muttered.
“Really?” Her gaze moved from him to the photo and back to him again. “Are you saying you and your family weren’t happy in this photo?”
“I’m saying I don’t know.” He moved next to her and stared at the photo. “I thought we were happy. But now I know all those happy moments were covering up big secrets. I don’t know what was real and what was just for show.”
“Maybe you don’t need to figure it out. Maybe you just need to accept the memories the way they are in your mind. I’m sure your parents would want that for you.”
“But how can they be so happy when they were keeping something so explosive from us?”
“Perhaps it’s because they’d made peace with their decision. They had to believe they were doing the right thing for their family. And then they let it go because otherwise it would have destroyed the family you knew. Just like you need to let go of the anger at them and the guilt you’ve heaped on yourself before it destroys you.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know if I can do that. You don’t understand.”
Sylvie turned to him. “Why are you so willing to just reject the happiness you felt? It was a real and genuine emotion. You should be embracing it instead of rejecting it.”
“Is that what you’re doing? Embracing the good memories of your mother?”
“I’m trying.”
“But you’re still blaming yourself for not being there for her as much as you feel you should have been.”
She nodded.
“Then how is that so different from what I’m doing?”
She glanced away. She supposed that in a way, it wasn’t. Maybe they both had some letting-go to do. Maybe it was what they both needed to do before either of them could be truly happy.
And then she remembered something she’d forgotten in her grief. It was a conversation with her mother near the end. Sylvie had been apologizing for having to leave for work when her mother had told her she understood. And she was proud of her. She said that Sylvie was the best daughter she could have ever hoped for. And that soon she would be reunited with Sylvie’s father, and both of them would be watching over her, smiling down upon her. She urged Sylvie to find a love like that for herself—a love that would last all of eternity.
Sylvie’s gaze moved to Enzo. What would her mother make of him? Would she tell Sylvie to cut her losses and leave the estate? She had so many questions. In this moment she missed her mother with such a fierce intensity.
“Sylvie, are you okay?” The concern in Enzo’s voice drew her from her thoughts.
She glanced at him. “What?”
“You’re crying.”
“I am?” She ran her fingers over her cheeks. They were damp. “I’m sorry. I was just remembering a conversation with my mother.”
“It must have been serious.”
“It was one of the times when I had to leave her to go to work and she told me she understood. She said she was proud of me. I can’t believe I’d forgotten that.” She left out the part about finding true love. She didn’t want Enzo reading anything into it. Her gaze met his. “Thank you.”
“For what? Making you cry?”
“No.” She smiled. “For giving me back a memory—an important memory.”
“You’re welcome, though I don’t think I did anything.”
“Sometimes it’s just having someone to listen. And you were that someone today.”
He smiled at her. “Let’s put these prints back on the wall.”
“Sounds like a plan.” They set to work side by side.
* * *
Enzo honestly didn’t think he’d said much of anything important.
But Sylvie seemed to think differently.
For the next few days they worked together as a team cleaning, sorting and arranging. Sylvie had been extra nice to him. If he had sparked a memory in her mind, he was happy he’d been able to do that for her.
Trying to remember the past wasn’t his problem. He clearly recalled his past with his parents and the illusion of a happy family. The problem was he also remembered the carnage and agony after both of his parents died.
That stupid journal had compounded matters. Why had his mother kept it? If they hadn’t read it, no one would have been the wiser. Well, that wasn’t true. He knew the secret. At least some of it. And the guilt for keeping that information to himself was something that dogged his steps throughout the estate.
They’d hung the prints in the tank room. And then they’d moved to the main house, putting family photos back on the walls—some of his immediate family and others of their ancestors in black-and-white photos. By the time they had the villa fully decorated, Monday was over and they were exhausted.
Come Tuesday morning, they put back all the decorations in the barrel and tank room in the winery. There was only one room left. The wine-tasting room was part museum and part tasting space for visitors. It had taken Enzo days to take everything down and pack it away.
He glanced around at the bare, expansive walls that used to hold a collage of vineyard history. “I don’t know if we’re going to get this all done.”
“Sure we are.” Sylvie’s gaze followed his before returning to him. She sent him a reassuring smile. “We just have to hurry. We’ll put everything back where it came from. It will save us the time of having to figure out where things should go.”
He didn’t see where that would save much time. But there was no time to argue. So while he moved the squared black display stands with glass tops back into position, Sylvie opened one storage box after the next, unwrapping awards, novelties and plaques with descriptions of each item. Enzo wasn’t sure why he’d packed absolutely everything but every time he went to part with something, he found a reason not to do so. His sisters might want it. The item might be valuable. Vito might want some of it. There was always an excuse close at hand.
“I have some photos on my phone that might help us put the smaller things back where they were.” Sylvie pulled out her phone and placed it on the table.
Curiosity had him walking over and taking a look. There were a number of photos, not only of the wine-tasting room but also of the main house and the surrounding grounds. “Are you an amateur photographer?”
“Hardly. I just love this place and I wanted to be able to remember it. You don’t mind, do you?”
“No. Not at all.”
“I bet the young, ambitious you in these photos would have never imagined this day would come.”
As Enzo gazed at the old family photos, he heard his father’s voice in his mind: Life never goes the way you plan. It’s finding your way through life’s detours that’s worth the effort.
Enzo realized this was his detour in life. He just had no idea where it was going to lead him. First, he had to wind things up here at the estate and it was proving to be more complicated than he’d ever imagined.
“Enzo?” Sylvie was giving him a strange look. “Everything okay?”
“Um, yeah. Fine. Let’s get these things where they belong.”
And so they worked for a while in silence. He couldn’t believe she’d talked him into putting all of this stuff back. What was it about Sylvie that he was willing to do things he wouldn’t do otherwise?
“What do you think?” Sylvie’s gaze moved around the room. “Think we’ll get it done today?”
“Today? Do you have something you want to do tomorrow?”
She smiled and nodded. He knew that smile. She looked that way when she had a plan he wasn’t going to like, not like at all.
He pressed his hands to his waist. “Sylvie, what do you have in mind?”
“I thought we could head into Florence. I was thinking some flower arrangements and candles and maybe a wreath or two…or three would brighten up this place. The photos are a nice touch but the decor needs softening a bit.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Don’t set your heart on it.”
She turned a serious gaze on him. “I’m not giving up on this. I’ll go to Florence alone if I must.”
Her words brought forth another memory. Enzo recalled his father standing in this very room saying to him, Never give up on those you love.
And another of his father’s sayings: Forgiveness is one of the greatest things you can give yourself and others.
It was almost like his father knew this day was coming and in his cryptic way, he was guiding his son. But Enzo just couldn’t brush aside what his parents’ secret had done to his sisters. It wasn’t right. Maybe his father should have taken some of his own advice.
“Enzo—” Sylvie’s voice put a halt to his thoughts “—if you don’t want to go, you can just say so. You don’t have to scowl at me.”
He was scowling? He hadn’t realized his thoughts had transformed onto his face. With concerted effort, he smoothed the frown lines. “Sorry. It wasn’t you. I just had a memory.”
“Of your parents?”
He nodded. “It was of my father. He used to share with me these little bits of wisdom.”
“Like what?”
Enzo told her what he could remember. As he was talking about his parents, he started to see them in a new light. They were more than a married couple running this estate with nary a hiccup. When you scratched beneath the surface, they were flawed individuals. But when you went even deeper, they were loving parents.
“Maybe you should reconsider selling the estate,” she said.
He shook his head.
“But you have good memories. Maybe not all of them are happy—”
“Sylvie, stop!” He paused as though reining in his frustration. “It’s too late.”
“But you haven’t signed any papers yet—”
“I gave my word.”
“That’s not the same as signing a sales agreement.”
“For me it is.” And with that he walked away.
Sylvie let go of the subject—for now. Instead, she focused on the work. Sooner or later she was going to have to admit defeat. Just not today.