I paused, observing the silver cutlery laid out on the burgundy linen tablecloth, alongside with the modern crockery ordered especially for the occasion. Everything in our house was old, everything had tradition, history. However, that wasn't Valentina's world, and I really wanted the evening to be hers.
Only hers.
I stuck my hands inside my pockets, standing under the arch that connected the dining room to the main living room. In front of me, at the opposite end of the table, hung a painting that carried a very old story. It was the portrait of a young couple, two Italians with dark hair, skin, and eyes. He was dressed in a three-piece suit, she was wearing a white lace dress. That portrait had been preserved over the decades and restored once or twice, yet, even from that distance, I could still see it.
The ring.
The damn ring.
The man and woman in the portrait were Giuseppe and Rosa Vicari. Giuseppe, my ancestor, was a poor shepherd. He grew up in the hills of Castello dell'Fiero, with the sheep, and only got his first pair of shoes at the age of fifteen. Rosa, on the other hand, was the daughter of a wealthy famiglia from Rome, who used to spend their summers between Calabria and Sicily. They were only seventeen when they first met and quickly fell for each other. Unfortunately, their love was never a possibility.
It was said that Rosa's parents sent her to a convent for a year to take away any hope she might have of getting together with the poor Calabrian shepherd. And they thought they had succeeded when Rosa finally accepted an arranged marriage to some doctor.
I smiled as I remembered the rest of the story.
Rosa, at the tender age of eighteen, stabbed her fiancé in the neck on their wedding night and fled Rome, untouched. She was quite a woman, something anyone could notice just from the haughty look portrayed in the painting.
When she returned to Calabria, Rosa found her beloved shepherd again and became pregnant shortly after. Her father, a renowned lawyer, convinced all of Rome that his daughter and son-in-law had been killed during a cruel robbery, silentlydisinheriting her to prevent the tarnishing of their famiglia’s name. It is even said that they manage to find the body of some poor woman to take their daughter's place in the coffin.
Neither Rosa nor Giuseppe were concerned about those events. Quite the contrary. Faced with poverty, they joined forces and built up what was now the famiglia Vicari. However, not before Giuseppe got rid of his herd and proved to Rosa that her sacrifice would be worth it and that his love for her was sincere.
The poor Calabrian shepherd, with the money from the animals’ sale, bought three things for his wife: that portrait, a wedding dress, and the engagement ring. The painting was completed two days before their wedding by a young artist from the region, and it was said that the curve of Rosa's belly had been deliberately omitted from it. The dress, it was known, had been chosen by Rosa herself and made by local lace makers, but the ring was a different story.
According to the famiglia’s lore, Giuseppe took his herd to graze for one last time when he saw a stone shining on the ground. He picked up the cracked rock and saw a yellowish-green interior that looked almost like glass. For him, that was a good omen, so he took it to the nearest jeweler and asked if he could make a wedding ring for his wife with it.
At that moment, Giuseppe changed his famiglia's destiny forever. Not only did he create the ring that would accompany future generations of Vicari, but he also discovered a pocket of olivine on his land.
In an act of humility, love, and devotion, Giuseppe Vicari discovered what would become the famiglia's first mine and would take him from a humble village boy to one of the greatest gemstone merchants in all of Italy.
That was the story that generations of Vicari tried to honor. We worked to keep the società alive, and also to make it prosper within L’OnorotaSocietà, but above all, to never let the memory of Rosa and Giuseppe fade away. Therefore, I would be lying if I said that breaking the famiglia’s ring tradition didn't bother me. It felt as if I had a thorn stuck in my chest and the two figures from the painting were judging me, but I supposed that somehow my decision made me a worthy descendant of the couple.
I was following my heart, just as they did.
“Sushi?” hissed a voice behind me, with a thick accent.
I took a deep breath before turning around.
“It's Valentina's favorite food, Mamusia.”
Tall, elegant, with long, red nails to match her ginger hair, my mother rolled her eyes and stormed past me, plopping down in one of the chairs at the middle of the table.
“If Valentina liked to eat shit, was I supposed to eat it too?”
I pressed my lips together to suppress a laugh. I knew that she was not in the mood for jokes. In fact, her wolfish gaze fixed on me, narrowed, too attentive and too similar to my own, warned me to take her seriously.
“Come on, Mamusia...” I pleaded and slid into the chair right next to hers. Taking her slender hands into mine, I kissed themgently. “She's going to be my wife and the mother of your grandchildren...”
I saw the debate on her face. Her Polish blood trying to keep her countenance unyielding, but her mother's heart was slowly melting at my pleas.
She pulled her hands away, crossing her arms.
“Camillo...” The gravity in her tone made me straighten up in my chair like a little kid about to get scolded. “It's not because she's a spoiled brat. I could tolerate that!” shegrumbled, and I swallowed hard. That insult was nowhere near where she was getting at with that conversation, and I knew it well. “You're bringing a prosecutor into our family. Not a simple attorney, not a judge... A prosecutor.”
I lay an arm on the back of her chair and the other on the table, letting my head fall forward.
"I know, and I trust her with my eyes closed. I would put my life in her hands without hesitation, Mamusia." I murmured, staring at the dark floor.
My mother's fingernails dug into my chin, forcing me to look at her again. “Your life is yours to entrust to whomever you see fit, but you have no right to decide for the lives of others.”