Brava, Valentine

I squint to see who it might be.

I gasp, letting go of the breath I held in fear. Kathleen Sweeney, who was here for a meeting, is in the arms of my brother. They are kissing passionately, and don’t hear me or see me until I step back toward the entrance door to escape and accidentally drop the keys. In the quiet they sound like steel hitting iron.

Kathleen scurries into the bathroom, while Alfred turns away.

“Alfred. What are you doing?” I barely get the words out.

He doesn’t answer me.

“What is going on here?” I put my hand to my head, knowing full well what I have seen, yet not wanting to believe it.

Alfred doesn’t answer.

I put the keys on the table and go out the shop door, closing it behind me. I climb the stairs-my legs are weak beneath me, but I take them two at a time, wanting to put what I’ve seen, and now know, behind me.

7. Love Lies

GABRIEL OPENS THE OVEN AND pulls out a rack of fresh scones. The apartment fills with the sweet scent of butter, eggs, and vanilla, which makes me ravenous, and also reminds me of Gram, and the delicious cakes she would make from scratch whenever we had down time in the shop.

Gabriel and I don’t chat much in the morning, but we have fallen into a comfortable routine. I put on the coffee, while he retrieves the Times from the entry downstairs. He comes upstairs, hands me the paper, and goes into the kitchen. Gabriel is from the Land of the Proper Breakfast. There has to be something hot served, or it’s considered cheating. For example, Gabriel doesn’t eat a bagel out of the sack or pour himself a bowl of cereal. Breakfast is bigger than that.

A bagel must be oven toasted, then served on a platter with a dollop of cream cheese, a fan of smoked salmon, chives, and capers, with a side of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Eggs are on the menu three times a week, either poached or scrambled or whipped into a healthy scrapple of fresh onions, peppers, spinach, and egg whites in a skillet.

I believe my new roommate is adding years to my life span with his healthy eating habits (if I skip the desserts!). I never drank pomegranate juice until he moved in, and now every Sunday morning I have a glass.

Despite all Gabriel’s positive influences in the health department, I’ve been having trouble sleeping. The apartment, usually neat and tidy, is in disarray while Gabriel sorts through his boxes and figures out what to keep and what to store. Down in the shop, June and I do our best to keep the mood light, but it’s nearly impossible, since Alfred, who used to invoke my wrath, now drains the same well of emotion leaching my pity. Who would have thought after years of avoiding him, now I’d be worried about him.

I can’t mention Kathleen and The Kiss to him, and he certainly isn’t volunteering an explanation. We never communicated well, and now it’s worse. The jabs are gone, replaced with self-loathing silence. I long for the days when I could ignore him, and just do my work. But now he’s made that impossible. He has changed. Imperious Alfred has been replaced with a sullen version, practically depressed, and terribly sad.

We need to talk, but I don’t know how to broach the subject. It’s too painful, or maybe I just don’t know what to say. And once we get past the awkward acknowledgment that I know and he knows, what’s to be done? Even if we do talk about her, I hold no sway with Alfred, so any advice I might give him would be ignored. I have to do something, though, because it’s affecting our day-to-day lives in the shop. When we’re working, it’s obvious his mind wanders and is clearly not on the job at hand, while mine returns to the same subject over and over again: How could you do this to your family, Alfred? How could you?

Gabriel sets the table for breakfast while I open my e-mail on the laptop.

The first message that grabs my eye is from Roberta Angelini. The subject line reads:

I Believe We Are Family

I open the e-mail. Roberta Angelini of Buenos Aires knows of Michel Angelini. She writes that she has information that would be “of interest” to me.

What an odd phrase to use, as though she’s daring me to open doors that have been closed for generations. But I have more than a passing interest in understanding why there was a schism in my family a hundred years ago, and why the rupture has been buried for so long.

Going through Gram’s boxes, I have learned that our family history has been recorded in ledgers, legal contracts, and sentimental letters marking important passages and dates. They do not, however, tell the whole story. There is no record of the reasons behind the decisions made in the documents. There are gaps, and omissions. My great-grandfather wrote his own brother right out of the family story. But why?

You would think that estrangements that occurred a hundred years ago are irrelevant, until I walk into my own shop. I still can’t get along with my own brother, and there are times, when I fight with Alfred, that the wound seems ancient. Maybe the answer lies in the past.

After all, history is the energy that flows through our work in the shop. Everything I create is based on the designs my great-grandfather left behind; wouldn’t it also stand true that we also carry certain behaviors forward when dealing with one another?

I IM Roberta. “What do you do?” I click send.

A few moments pass. I wonder if she’ll give me the brush-off. Then, an instant message pops up from Roberta.

“I operate and own the family business,” she writes.

“What business?

“We manufacture men’s shoes. We’re the Caminito Shoe Company.”

Roberta types in the name of her company, just as I do my own. A chill goes through me. “Gabe, you won’t believe it. Roberta makes shoes.”

Gabriel sits down next to me and reads the e-mail exchange. “This is crazy.”

I type: “Would love to discuss everything with you. May I call, or do you prefer e-mail?”

Roberta types: “Send me your questions, and then we’ll talk. I have a new baby, and my hours are difficult.”

I exit out of e-mail and click into Google. I type in: “Shoe Manufacturing in Buenos Aires.” I type in “Caminito Shoe Company.” A series of articles about Argentinian shoe manufacturers pops up. My hands shake as I type.

“I can’t believe it. I have a cousin who makes shoes, too!”

“Everybody has a twin, you know. Maybe she’s yours. Northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere-separated by the equator. I wish we’d found your twin in Rio, though-I always wanted to go to Carnival.”

“Sorry, I wouldn’t care if she had a mill on the moon.”

Gabriel places a cup of coffee with a small scone next to the computer.

“For me?” I place the pressed linen napkin on my lap.

“If you’re going to dig up family secrets, you need to eat.”

“You’re better than a husband.”

“Or a wife. Deciding to keep the Minton china made me feel British. I just had to whip up some scones.” Gabriel places the jam in front of my plate.

I nibble the buttery fresh biscuit. “You should open a bakery.”

“I’ve thought about it.” Gabriel pours me a cup of coffee and then one for himself.

“Can we talk?”

Gabriel sits. “I’ll talk about anything-including NASCAR, which I know nothing about-I just don’t want to talk about Alfred.”

“I’m sorry. I’m obsessed. But it’s because I don’t know what to do.”

“Do nothing. You can’t be sure you saw what you saw.”

“Oh, I saw it.”

“Okay, for the thousandth time, let’s say it was what you thought. That they were kissing. What if it was the first time they kissed?”

“What difference would that make?”

“A lot. Nothing puts the brakes on a budding affair like getting caught in an illicit lip-lock. Put yourself in Alfred’s shoes. The only thing worse than your sister catching you fooling around is your wife. I can’t imagine that the Redhead and your brother didn’t talk later and say, ‘This was God telling us to stop.’”