Page 45 of My Big Fat Italian Break-Up

‘But why did she hate my real mom so much? Why won’t she tell me anything about her? What’s she hiding?’

‘Absolutely nothing,’ Zia Martina chimed. ‘She’s always been odd. And they never got along, you know that. We told you everything there is to know,cara, dear.’

I huffed. ‘I wish I knew more about the family’s past. I wish… I wish Nonna hadn’t left Tuscany in the first place.’

‘You know,’ Zia Martina said as if she’d had a brainstorm, ‘we were thinking about riding out to San Gimignano to see if we can find our old home.’

I felt my eyes pop open. ‘Thecasolare? Nonna’sagriturismothat she sold to make the money to go to America?’

Zia Monica grinned. ‘Think you can tear yourself away from wedding planning for a couple of hours?’

Zia Maria nodded excitedly. ‘I’m sure I can find it. It has an amazing view of the town.’

‘Wow, that’s so exciting. Go, go, go!’ Renata said. ‘Paul and I’ll hold the fort.’

‘Are you sure?’ I asked. ‘We’re expecting a few follow-up calls.’

Renata and Paul both shot me a look.

‘Go already, before we change our minds,’ Renata said, shooing us away.

So the five of us climbed into my blue Fiat 500L and I punched San Gimignano into the satnav with Zia Maria, who was the eldest and thus remembered best, sitting up front with me. We took off, over auburn hill and luscious green dale, past majestic cypress trees that seemed to guard the landscape since the beginning of time, me in search of my origins and my aunts in search of their past.

I could almost see my nonna Silvia come alive from the faded sepia pictures with her long hair pinned up as was the fashion, rocking it in a stylish dress with a red-lipsticked half-grin, half-scorn as she defied the camera to judge her. Silvia had never cared what others thought of her. And that was what had made her the coolest grandmother in the world.

‘Are we there yet?’ Zia Monica wanted to know after twenty minutes.

We were so high up that puffy white clouds wafted past us and in the distance I could see several towns dotting the green land, an intricacy of white and terracotta knotted in small bundles scattered here and there haphazardly. Here in Tuscany, although every corner was unique, it was easy to get lost in the fairy-tale landscape of the cypress trees and hills that abounded, so much that you could get lost, thinking you were in one place rather than the other.

‘Just a few more minutes. It’s on a hill covered with cypress trees,’ Zia Maria said.

‘Hello? Have you looked around you? Every hill is covered with cypress trees,’ Zia Monica pointed out. ‘How are you going to find it?’

Zia Maria smiled smugly. ‘I have my landmarks. Go down this hill into the village and come out the other side, Erica.’

Following Zia Maria’s directions past the town, then up again over a hill that seemed never-ending, Zia Martina, the second eldest, chipped in with a ‘Yes, yes, down this road. I remember now. Look, that’s it! That’s Tenuta Bettarini, our old farm!’

I instinctively braked and we stared at the property nestled at the top of the highest hill overlooking an immense reddish-brown valley, dappled with several minor and greener hillocks. It jumped out at us, like straight out of a fairy tale. A thick white mist swept around the base of the Bettarinis’ hill like a cat’s furry tail.

And I stared in stunned silence. It was impossible. It couldn’t be. We might have come a different way, but my satnav confirmed it. I stared at the computer screen and then out beyond the windshield to the B & B that had tried to shut us down. The bloody Cascianis. What the…?

And to think that I’d always promised myself that if I ever set foot on my grandmother’s land, I’d run rings around the place, embrace the high stone walls and cry, ‘I’m home! I’m home! I’m finally home!’

But nothing could be further from the truth. Because the reality was that Nonna’s farmhouse, the place I’d dreamed of all my life, was now the bane of my life.

‘Erica? You OK?’ Zia Maria asked.

‘That…’ I stammered. ‘T-that’s Tasting friggin’ Tuscany…’

‘What, you mean your rival company?’ Zia Monica gasped. ‘The ones who tried to shut you down? Erica…?’

I pulled myself together. ‘The very ones.’

I’d kept my promise to Julian that I wouldn’t interfere with the snail-like course of justice anymore, but family history and fate had brought me here once again. What was I to do? Wasn’t this a sign or what?

‘Let’s go down,’ I croaked, shifting into neutral and rolling down the hill. This was unreal. How could my family’s ancestral home be the very B & B that was trying to ruin us? And yet there it was. Dazed, we all stared in stunned silence.

‘It’s changed so much. Now, it looks like…yourplace,’ Zia Monica said, and I nodded, still slack-jawed as I drove through the open gates and parked.

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