Mr. Caruso clears his throat. Zia reaches under the table and finds my hand. Her fingers are cool and dry.
“There are several small bequests,” he says. “To friends, to the church, to Saint Michael’s soup kitchen. To the Ladies’ Auxiliary, may they finally replace the coffee urn that shorts out.” A ripple of chuckles; even now, St. Michael’s coffee is a scandal. “She has left modest sums to each of the grandchildren.”
He nods toward us cousins. “Five thousand dollars, to be placed in accounts for the children and, in the case of those of you over eighteen, to be released at the discretion of your mothers.”
Marco’s eyebrows lift. Talia rubs the baby’s back. Someone says, “That’s Sabina” under their breath, and it is. Generous but not foolish. Money as both love and lesson.
“Her jewelry is to be divided by Francesca and Loredana, with the understanding that Francesca receives their mother’s cameo and Loredana receives the St. Anthony medal that Sabina wore every day.” He looks up to make sure they hear it. They do.
Mama’s hand goes to her throat like she can feel the cameo there. Zia’s mouth softens at St. Anthony, finder of lost things. “The rosary goes to Bianca,” he adds. “She asked me to say, ‘the one with the rosemary knot.’”
My throat closes fast enough to make me swallow wrong. I cough. Mama pats my back automatically, a rhythm from childhood that calms me even now.
“And now,” Mr. Caruso says, and the room tightens like a muscle. “As to the house and Regalia.”
Mama sits straighter. Zia lets my hand go. The room goes even quieter somehow.
“Sabina leaves her residence—this house—to her granddaughter, Bianca Marcelli,” he says.
Everything in the room blurs just a little on the edges. For a heartbeat, I think I have misheard him, that my brain is still stuck on lilies and cameos. Then it clears up suddenly, giving me a head rush.
“To me?” It comes out small.
Mr. Caruso meets my eyes. His are gentle, and so is his smile. “Yes.”
Mama is very still. So still the lilies behind her seem to move. Her mouth opens and closes and then finds a shape that is not a smile and notnota smile. “My mother,” she says. “My mother’s house.”
Mr. Caruso looks at her with a man’s helplessness in the face of something he can’t fix. “Sabina was explicit,” he says. “It is Bianca’s. There is no life estate granted, but—” He looks through the paper as if it might help soften the blow. “She wrote a letter to accompany her wishes.” He touches the stack of envelopes but doesn’t pick them up. “We will come to those.”
The room breathes again, in and out. Zia’s hand finds mine again, squeezes like she’s trying to ground me.
“And the restaurant,” Mama says, her voice low like a stove turned down so it doesn’t boil over. “Regalia.”
Mr. Caruso nods. He clears his throat, checks the page even though he knows. I can see he knows. “Sabina leaves Regalia—its assets, its name, and its debts—to Bianca as well.”
It’s like the word “Bianca” is a stone thrown into a pond, and I am all ripples and no water. The room wobbles. The house. The restaurant. The two pillars that are our family. I grip the edge of the table because I’m afraid I might tip right out of my chair.
“Mr. Caruso,” Mama says. “No.” She says it plainly, like she’s correcting something simple. “No. That’s not—it’s a mistake. I have been running it. For years. You know this.”
“I do,” Mr. Caruso says. His eyes are kind. He might be the kindest man I have ever seen. “Sabina did not take that lightly.”
“She didn’t take anything lightly,” Mama says, and her mouth twists into something that might be a smile if the world were not falling. “But this has to be a mistake.”
“She included a provision,” he says, and there is relief in the word “provision,” like it might smooth things over. “There is a compensation clause for services rendered—Francesca, you are to be paid a salary for the last three years at the rate she determined was fair, plus a bonus. It is to be paid out of the restaurant’s accounts. Additionally, she has left you—personally—a sum, separate and apart, in appreciation. Fifty thousand dollars.”
Fifty thousand dollars. It’s a lot and it’s not enough, and the money is both and neither. Mama doesn’t blink. She looks at me, but she’s not really seeing me. Like she’s looking through me.
“No,” she says again, but it isn’t to Mr. Caruso now. It is to the room, to everyone and everything in it, to the ghost of her mother who must be standing in the doorway with her arms crossed, waiting for someone to argue so she can swat them with a dish towel. “No.”
Zia leans forward. “Francesca,” she says. “Listen.”
“I am listening.” Mama’s voice shakes. “I am listening to a joke.”
“It isn’t a joke,” Mr. Caruso says gently. “It’s a will.”
“A will can be wrong,” she says, and for a second, she is the girl in the photo Nonna kept on the wall. Young and sullen from some past aggression no one really remembers. “It can be… it can be changed. It can be contested. It can—”
“It can,” he allows, and I can hear the “but” before he says it. “But Sabina was of sound mind. She made this decision knowing its weight. She signed in my presence and with two witnesses. We will honor it.”
