Violetta nods, which sets Dario at ease.
This is his home. This villa is where he grew up. This is the study where his father worked before he passed away, severing the line of succession and leaving behind a legacy Dario sometimes feels too young to take on with his two modestly experienced hands. His eagerness to make impactful change on the family business does not outweigh his ballooning, clinically diagnosed anxiety.
This villa, due to that generalized anxiety and his acute agoraphobia, is also Dario’s fortress. Which works in a morbid way given the village’s medieval beginnings. Dario’s world has not extended past the borders of Perugia sincethe incidenthe tries not to dwell on. His therapist keeps reminding him that increased exposure to his triggers is key to treating his agoraphobia, and he’s made small strides.
Outside of the villa, Dario can go to the Amorina factory for work and to Lake Trasimeno for a sail and a stop at Isola Polvese, but ever since his nonno got sick and then passed away, he’s put his mental health on the back burner. Because if as a child, you touched the stove while it was still hot and came away with a burn, you would know not to touch it again. Perhaps, like the skin on our fingertips, Dario Cotogna is too sensitive for thescorching stovetop of the unknown, andthe incidentwas the universe’s way of imparting a tough lesson.
Violetta proceeds. “On to the matter of the Amorina company.”
Dario’s heart takes off with the speed of a thousand horses. He grips his mother’s hand again, needing to be grounded in what is both a bittersweet and significant moment.
Violetta’s red lips turn down, and she sets her glasses aside. The air in the room grows warmer, and it has nothing to do with the bright sun shifting positions through the nearby windowpanes, creating lines of mustard yellow across the tan, lacquered floor. Dario hitches forward in his chair, which creaks with age beneath him.
“There is a small matter we need to discuss,” she says, going off-script. Dario has known Violetta since he was an infant. She used to babysit him. Judging by the creases between her eyebrows, whatever the matter is, it will not be small, but it almost certainly will be unpleasant.
“What is it?” Dario asks, not sounding the least bit brave.
“According to the will—” Violetta begins, voice professional but eyes brimming with sympathy “—Dario Cotogna is to be the temporary successor of Amorina Chocolates.”
“Temporary?” he asks, confusion bursting out of every syllable in the blasted word.
She ducks her head back to her paper, evidently needing the safety of legalese to deliver this next part. “The will states that you get to be permanent owner of Amorina under one stipulation—you get married by your thirty-second birthday.” She offers no explanation, just a weak, sad smile.
At present, Dario is as far from married as one could be. He is out of the dating pool, shut off from the world on this hilltop. But he is quite close to turning thirty-two. Less than a year away from it.
“I’m confused,” he says, letting go of his mother’s hand and standing. Emilio snort-laughs. Dario shoots him a fiery glare that he hopes shuts him up. Though he knows not even a knife to the throat would shut Emilio up.
When they were younger, people often mistook them for twins. They had the same modest height, the same hush puppy hazel eyes, and the same rosy, round cheeks. If you found one running mud-stained through the garden, the other was always close behind, roaring like a monster in a game of make-believe only the two of them understood.
But as Emilio put on weight, grew a full beard and spoke with a lower register, Dario stayed the same. His voice remained high and bright like his mother’s. His cheeks got patchy at best. His body never became a trunk to boast a family tree on, instead remaining twiglike and shaky to any sudden breezes.
People treated Emilio like a man, including their venturesome father, and Dario like the second-born late bloomer. Time and difference and eventually distance put an end to their playful, brotherly bond. These days, they regard one another more as side effects of their parentage rather than true siblings.
“You have one year to marry, or you forfeit your inheritance,” Violetta says.
“That old bat!” Dario shouts, pacing across the floor.
He stops long enough for Violetta to produce a crisp envelope from the outer pocket of her fine leather attaché case. “He told me to give you this.”
His grandfather’s inscription in practiced cursive on the front of the envelope says:In case he calls me an old bat.
The card inside the envelope simply reads in Italian:Chocolate tastes sweeter with a little love.
Dario, seconds away from ripping out his hair, says, “This must be a joke.”
Violetta whips out another envelope. The outside reads:In case he says this must be a joke.
Dario’s eyes jump to the words on the card.Love is no joke.
“He can’t do this!” Dario shouts.
A third envelope. A third card. Cosimo Sr.’s written:I can, and I did.
Dario holds the three cards—a losing hand in whatever game his grandfather is playing—and flaps them about. “What am I supposed to do with these?” he asks. Exasperation echoes through the study.
He did not need to look at the outside of the next envelope to deduce what his grandfather wrote there. The envelope, unlike the others, is thick and weighty. Inside is not a card but a letter. A letter that unfolds dozens of times like a king’s scroll, sweeping across Dario’s newly shined shoes.
Tesorino,
