Page 10 of Niccolo

It was a quiet moment after she’d been pronounced dead by the nurse on duty, and we all gathered to pay our respects. My brothers kissed her on the forehead, and Uncle Fausto squeezed her hand. Even Aurelio was somber and kind as he laid a fresh-cut rose at the foot of her bed.

My father asked us all for a moment to be alone with her.

My brothers left…

But I stayed in the hallway in case he needed me.

Through the closed door, I heard him say something.

I drew closer, thinking he might be speaking to me –

But then I heard what he was saying.

He was speaking to her, calling her by name.

“Viviana,” he said in anguish and despair. “What will I do now? Viviana… what will I do now?”

He kept repeating it, over and over, his voice wracked with grief.

It was that moment, more than any other, that destroyed me.

We buried her out in the olive groves near the house.

The funeral was somber and small, with only a few attendees.

My father, me and my brothers, and Fausto and Aurelio…

Mama’s two sisters – her only surviving relatives since her parents had both passed…

And all the household staff, who had cared for her deeply. She had always been kind to them, even when she was in terrible pain.

She was well-loved in life… and all the most important people were there for her at the end.

Every day for ten years, my father visited her grave.

He never remarried – and to my knowledge, he never so much as looked at another woman again.

After a couple of years passed, my brothers gently suggested he start dating, but he refused. Eventually, he forbade them to stop asking.

I recalled something my mother had said while we played chess so many years before:

I’ve lost my gentildonna… and I can’t go on without her.

Obviously, Papadidgo on, at least in some regards.

He continued his role as the head of the family business… and he loved my brothers and me even more fiercely, treasuring every day with us.

But there was a part of him that went away when she did, never to return.

Unlike my brothers, who worried about him, I took a different view.

I want to find a woman like that.

A woman I love so completely that no one else compares…

A queen.

And maybe… just maybe…

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