As you know, my dearest nonna began Amorina Chocolates from her two biggest loves: sweets and her sweet, your great-great-grandfather. Since then, love has been the main ingredient of both our recipe and our business model. It is my belief that love is the reason Amorina Chocolates has had such success and staying power in the candy industry.
Since this is so…
There’s a plan, already in action. A harebrained plan. A plan that is so outrageous that Dario steps away from his mother and brother who have been reading over his shoulders. As he moves to the window, he nearly tears the scripture like a roll of toilet paper when he steps on its outlandish length. Bathed in fresh sunlight, he tries and fails to make sense of this testimony.
But wasn’t that always the way? He understood that his grandfather could not be understood. Even in death, there are no exceptions, no differences. Cosimo Sr.’s powerful specter hangs there, suspended in the room. Dario half hears his booming laugh right in his ear.
Dario does not have the energy to read on. His eyes keep glazing over, and his mind keeps running seven words ahead. He cannot absorb any of this, too stuck in the aftershock, mired in the barbed wires of grief. “What happens if I say no to this? All of this?”
“It says it in—”
“Please tell me,” Dario says, hands clasping the pages so tightly he crumples them a little. “I’ll go back and read it. Read it all. I promise.” He means this, he does. Because this is the last correspondence his grandfather has written him. He would cherish it for all eternity if it weren’t so set on catapulting him straight out of his comfort zone and into a thicket of never-ending panic attacks. “But right now, please just tell me.”
Violetta nods before putting her glasses on again. “Should Dario Cotogna not accept the terms of this will, the line of succession will skip to Emilio Cotogna immediately.”
Dario’s hand flies to his mouth, dropping the scroll. He is going to be sick.
“Fuck yeah,” Emilio says, fist-pumping the air.
“Em, not now,” says April, crossing to Dario. She wraps him in a hug that should be comforting but is not. Not even her familiar floral fragrance, underpinned by the dark chocolate they were all snacking on moments ago, calms his nerves.
“I’ll contest it,” Dario says, stepping out of his mother’s embrace. The heir apparent of Amorina Chocolates needs to be strong. He can do this alone, just as he’s done everything. Alone is how he is best. Minimizing the probability of betrayal and hurt and mistakes is the name of the game.
“Do you really want to take this to court?” Violetta asks.
The time, the money, the headache! Dario refuses to drag his family through that, butwhy. Why, from beyond the grave, must his grandfather punish him like this?
“No,” Dario confesses.
“Good boy,” says April.
“Yeah,good boy,” Emilio mocks, rosy cheeks jiggling with laughter. April smacks him on the arm. “Ow.”
“Oh, please.” She rolls her eyes fabulously. She does everything fabulously. Why could Dario not have inherited that from her? He would be fabulously married by now and this would be a total nonissue.
Dario swallows the fight hardening in his throat. “What do I have to do to make this happen?”
Agoraphobia drew strict boundaries around his world. Cosimo Sr. was aware of them before he passed. He might have been quirky, but he was never cruel.
“Nothing. You say the word and the whole plan, overseen by me, gets set into motion today.”
Dario stares out the study window. The in-ground pool sparkles in the sunshine. Beyond it, Lake Trasimeno swans with life. Boats speckle the wavy surface along with its famed islands, most of which are crawling with over-tanned tourists in funny hats saying grazie mille in unpracticed accents because they’re on vacation, seeing the world. Because why not.
Why not?That’s the new question that sails through the break of Dario’s thoughts.
He’s never been able to outwit his grandfather. This time, he should not even try. Instead, he must choose to accept.
“Va bene,” he says, without any true idea of what he’s agreeing to, “I’ll get married.”
TWO
CHARLIE
Death tickles Charlie Moore’s doorstep.
The single-story, two-bedroom, one-bathroom house he shares with his parents and grandparents in Slatington, Pennsylvania, sags into its foundation like a shingled, forgotten mausoleum on the literally named Cemetery Street.
Many years ago, on a walk home from school past the white-painted church with its foreboding bell tower, Charlie’s erstwhile friend Max asked, “How can anyone live on a street where people go when they die?”
