“This is why I am here. When.”Signor Dandolo sighed. Each set of his papers were meticulously stacked in two piles in front of him. One represented the Fausti family, the other the Capellafamily. “It has been stated at this table that Mariano Fausti has defied the law and tested fate before the agreed upon time.”
“This is so,” my father said, and my grandfather narrowed his eyes at him. My great-uncles looked as if they wanted to slap my father’s head—all at once.
“Does this mean you mean to charge Mariano Fausti with breaking this law?” Signor Dandolo pointedly asked my father.
“Will I be charged with breaking the law as well?” I asked, but it seemed like no one other than the women and Signor Dandolo were listening to me. “Iwillinglymarried.”
“This is not the way of it,” SignorDandolo answered me.
Mariano cleared his throat. All eyes swung to him.
“If I shall be charged with a crime, the crime of love, and sentenced to death as my punishment, we should also discuss another situation. A situation that did not have to do with love but greed, and ended in death as well.”
“You have no idea what you are speaking of!” My father almost got to his feet, but my grandfather set a hand on his shoulder, keeping him in his seat.
“Your first wife,” Mariano said to my father.
“She died in a car accident!” my father said, his face as red as apomodoro.
I would have looked to my sister for confirmation, but I truly did not have a sister, not in the way nature had intended. She was a snake who lived in the same house. However, it did not change the fact that this news was shocking to me. My father had been married before he married my mamma?
“Did she?” Mariano seemed to muse.
I looked between my husband and father. Then at Nonno Luca. He was staring at the two men as well. His bottom lip was wet, as if he had been rolling his teeth over it. He was hungry for this fight in honor of love.
Suddenly, I was starving for the truth of this matter.
Did my father kill his first wife? Was that what Mariano was getting at?
“No,” my grandfather said, essentially ending the conversation about my father’s first wife and the car accident that was brought up. “We do not want death as punishment in this matter. Mariano Fausti will stand against fate as our law dictates.”
“However, we still want justice in this matter, for one of the Cappello women being taken from us!” my father added, his fists tightened into useless weapons, but he was not shouting as he once was. Mariano had knocked some of the hot air from his lungs.
“Flavio,” Luca said.
My father turned his eyes to Nonno Luca, and his entire demeanor changed. Before, it almost seemed as if he wanted to jump out of his seat and go not for Mariano’s throat, but mine. However, when he looked Nonno Luca in the eyes, he almost seemed to wilt in his seat.
“The reason the Fausti family entered into an arrangement with the Capella family was because of the romance. Your jewelry stood for this. Yet, you sit at this table and condemn love.”
“In all due respect, Signor Fausti,” my father said, not an ounce of heat in his voice. Just a curt sharpness that did not bely his intelligence when it came to the rules of the Fausti family, and in this regard, the one my family shared with the Fausti family. “Your family is known to respect rules once your honorable word is given, and yet your blood sits at my table, breaking the very rule that has kept us together all these years.”
“Tell me this.” Luca’s pointer finger tapped on the ancient wood. “Who at this table is above love.”
Before my father could respond, SignorDandolo cleared his throat. “Fate. Fateislove, is involved inallmatters. This is whywe do this. If fate approves of the union, there is no one at this table, in this world, who can deny it is meant to be.”
The entire table went quiet, perhaps all in agreement with this sentiment, except for my sister, who scoffed.
“Remind me.” SignorDandolo fixed his glasses. “Who is this young woman?”
“My daughter,” my father said, pride in his voice.
“She shall leave,” Signor Dandolo said evenly. “She has no place at this table. Unless she is a witness of some sort?”
“Ah,” my father breathed out, buying time. He looked at Capri. “Will you?—”
“No! Why doesshe—” she pointed at me “—get to stay if I have to go? This is not fair!” She pounded her fist on the table, and the pitcher of water, along with the glasses set next to it, clinked together.
TheotherCapella woman was an embarrassment, even over me, the rule breaker. She was a petulant adult who had never grown up because my parents, even my grandfather, never told her no.
