Vittoria pulled her close, letting Celeste cry against her shoulder like she'd done so many times as a child.
“I once had a friend back in Italy,” Vittoria murmured, her hand stroking Celeste's hair. “She loved another woman. This was—oh, sixty years ago? Seventy? People were not kind about such things then. She was very afraid of what people would sayand what her family would think. Utterly terrified of being cast out.”
Celeste went still.
“But in the end, she pursued love anyway. And you know what? She was happier for it. Much happier than if she had hidden.” Vittoria pulled back, cupping Celeste's face with both hands. “You can do the same, tesoro.”
“H-how did you know?”
“I know you very well. You're not often scared, yet right now you look more terrified than I've ever seen you. And you just returned from a road trip with an old female classmate. I can put two and two together.”
“That's remarkably perceptive.”
“I am old, not blind. Tell me about her.”
Celeste felt familiar wells of panic rising to the surface. “What about Marco? You cut him off and said he was dead to you. The whole family did.”
Vittoria's expression shifted to confusion. “Marco? What does he have to do with anything?”
“He came out as gay and you disowned him.” The words tumbled out, decades of fear behind them. “I heard you say it. I was nine years old and I heard you tell everyone he was dead to you.”
“No.” Vittoria shook her head firmly. “Marco was disowned because he is a thief. He stole your great-aunt's jewelry and sold it to pay gambling debts. He is a bad person who betrayed our trust. Being gay has nothing to do with it.”
The world tilted, rearranging itself into a shape Celeste didn't recognize. “But I always thought—”
“You thought we rejected him for loving a man? No, child. Never. We rejected him for stealing from family. For lying and betraying trust.”
“But you never said…no one ever explained…I spent so long thinking…”
“Perhaps we should have been clearer.” Her grandmother sighed. “It was assumed that everyone knew the reason. Marco's betrayal was shameful to speak of, which made it easier to simply stop mentioning him at all.”
Celeste's mind was reeling. She'd spent all these years believing her family would reject her for being gay, all based on a misunderstanding.
“I was just a child. I didn’t understand why everyone stopped talking about him. I spent my whole life thinking it was because he was gay. All of this happened at the same time, didn’t it?”
Vittoria’s face crumbled. “We should have explained to you children what really happened. Of course you didn’t understand. And we failed you, especially, by not making it clear.”
“But I do not understand. I remember some people in the family speaking of him being gay as the reason he was cut off,” she said, confused now.
Her grandmother sighed. “There were people who wanted to cut him off because he was gay. Remember, this was many years ago when the world was different. But there were those of us who continued to want him in our lives. He was…he is… mynephew after all. Some people stopped speaking to him when he told us he was gay, yes.”
“But not you?”
“I was not one of them, no. I think him being gay made it so that some family members looked to find reasons to vilify him further. In fact, when I was first told he had attempted to sell one of our family heirlooms I did not believe it. I thought they were lying because they wanted to smear him for being gay. But they had evidence. And then more evidence came out and more…”
“But I … I was sure that I heard you say it was because he was gay. He was a monster.”
Vittoria shook her head. “He told me he was gay months before we found out he had been stealing. We just did not talk about it. Then, when we found out what he had been doing, some used his being gay to … It was hard to say. They were hateful and connected the two things together even though they have nothing to do with each other.”
Had she really misunderstood all of this? Her grandmother took Celeste’s hand.
“You never were meant to hear about all of this. You barely even knew Marco. How did you hear about this anyhow?”
Celeste thought back to the day she’d discovered her gay cousin had been disowned.
“Your sister. Isabella. She was here and the two of you were talking about him and I remember her saying he was cut out of the family because he was gay. That her son was a monster.”
“Ah. Now I understand.” Vittoria’s brows drew together. “Isabella took it badly when he came out. I think she might have forgiven him for almost anything else—but being gay? To her, that was a sin. And somehow, in her mind, that sin explained everything else.” She let out a quiet breath.
