After they had luncheon together, and once Lorenzo downed a cup of coffee, while knowing that his mother was coming. However, Zio Antonio would remain here with his family for a few more days. 

Their conversation had continued itself until Lorenzo promised him the journal. 

“I’ll need to go up to fetch it for you.” 

It was also his chance to get away from them, as he liked to withdraw away.

“Take me with you.” He begged. 

Cosimo followed him up, as the talking between the adults mostly devolved into topics that they rarely gave an interest in. He was already fiddling with the food and the forks while he stared. Cecelia only smiled, watching along. 

They both had snuck past the hall, and bringing him up to his study. 

“You get an entire room to yourself. And untouched too.” 

“I got it once I turned fifteen. “

It was blessedly empty, with no reminders. He barely remembered. 

“Here’s the journal,” he said, passing it to Cosimo. “Inside, it’s all the information about my travels. And well, I wasn’t really lying.” 

“You were never one to lie to me,” he said, before they both remembered a memory. One that downed their entire mood. 

“Are you planning to go back?” He asked. 

“No, anyway, I would have wanted to remain here. Now, I have more of a reason to.”

Cosimo accepted it, before leaving the room waving his hand. He took a seat, and wondering why he wanted to do so.

“Lorenzo.” He heard a knock on the door, and he went to see who it was. 

It was his mother, Beatrice, whose black hair with hazel eyes and her slender figure. He was a tall, slender man, stark in contrast when compared to his stocky father. He always took after her more, as he opened the door to his study. 

It had been a while since they talked to each other; she focused her attention on Cecelia. She was coming of age soon, and she needed to find prospective husbands. 

She came inside, taking a seat on an armchair. Gennaro had gone to grab a cup of coffee for them to talk to you. 

“How have you been?” She asked with a smile. “I haven’t had the time to talk to you. And what I saw earlier, felt that I needed to talk to you.”

Even after she had retired. 

“It was Maddalena that had called it first, and your father brought your uncle with him. I checked on you,” she said. 

“What did she say?” 

“Kindly telling me to tell you to not feed her son ideas.” She looked at her. 

Lorenzo looked at her, wondering just a little. Despite that, he had stepped on her toes. Maybe he had been too blatant. “Do you think I was wrong?” 

Lorenzo felt it was right of him, regardless to tell him. 

“It’s hard to say whether you were wrong. But I would not say if you were honest, but I don’t think you were lying. You even gave him your journal. I passed him in the hallway.” 

He gave a sheepish smile. “I think he should know it all, and before he goes back to his duties. At least have some happiness.” 

Inevitably, matters of survival would overtake them. 

Beatrice nodded. “Do you know why she is so concerned?” 

Lorenzo tried to think, but he didn’t come up with an answer, but he couldn’t come up with anything. 

“He had been her only child for almost a decade. I can understand why. Besides, it’s in a mother’s nature to fret and worry.” Beatrice took a sip. 

He wondered too, a question that he didn’t. And of course, how he left him behind. And whether there was. 

His mother was happy to welcome him home, immediately hugging him and caring for him. 

“With that, what do you think now?” Beatrice asked, looking into his eyes. “I know you struggle to understand the perspectives of others and emotions.”

She was a mother who wanted her children safe and out of safety. 

He had his answer. “I think I shouldn’t have been so blatant about it. But he would have had more delusions if I didn’t give him anything more than if I told him everything.”

His travelogue had much commentary of the life of poor and the normal. 

“It’s something that all mothers would have to realize, that your children grow up and someday, they may establish their own lives or leave you.” Beatrice grimaced. “On one hand, I’m never happier that you’re getting older, more mature. But on the other, I still see you as a child. You’ll understand once you’re a father.” 

It dampened the mood once more, just between them. 

“Did you worry about me when I was gone?” He asked. 

“I’ve accepted that it’s in God’s hands. I’ve made my peace with that years ago.” But she would shower her children with love as long as they were alive. 

He wanted to send her away. 

“You still haven’t answered my second question about what you do right now?” She asked, glancing at his hands. 

He could hide nothing from her. 

“Busy, I was about to dive into work again.” He pointed to the stacks of papers just behind him at the armchair. 

She shook her own head. “Don’t forget who you are, Lorenzo. It’s good that you’re not ignoring it, but you don’t have to put it ahead of everything else. And deep down, you’re interested in going back, don’t you?” 

Before she looked, before pinching his cheeks like they were as a child. He never liked it by anyone other than his mother. 

“It was luck that brought me here,” he said. “Like I’m occupying a spot that doesn’t belong to me and one that I never wanted.” 

The estate wasn’t meant to be his. Though he faced it all, regardless, deep in his mind, it belonged to someone else. But he was already gone. 

“It belongs to you, and everything that it does is now yours. The benefits, the downsides, everything. But own the decision since you already made it. You can’t look back anymore, and although it’s not your choice that brought you here,” she told him. “But why are you in such a hurry?” 

Lorenzo couldn’t answer it. His mother always liked to ask them why they were doing it. She loved them, but she also wanted them to do. 

“I’ve always been good at studies, and that impressed Papa. Except, I’m not that good at this.” He struggled harder, spending time with his father as he went to teach him what to watch and what to know. 

“He never thinks that way. You’re doing well, but maybe that’s a conversation I’ll have with him.” She gave a sigh, exasperated but happy a little. 

“Neither Papa nor I are good at expressing our feelings.” 

Lorenzo’s nature always got him to withdraw, to read more. While his father always spent his time with his horses. 

“You can either learn, or have someone you deeply trust and know you to point it out,” she said. Because one day, even she won’t be around. She was an old woman, and she would advise him as long as she could. 

“What scares you the most about this?” She touched his cheek. 

With his mother, he never felt safer at spilling things out. Things that he could never tell his father, as his father would expect more. 

“I’m afraid that I’m not good at it, that all of this may be for nothing, that I gave my dream up to give it away for nothing,” he said. “But maybe I shouldn’t neglect my pursuits.” 

“Yes, these matters take time, and anything takes time and patience. I still remember when you were still learning how to read, and how difficult it was for you.” She gave a smile. “I need to go now. Either way, I feel I need to talk to Maddalena personally. You talking to her would achieve almost no good, better for us both.” 

He smiled, as though this reignited him, perhaps to take time for himself. 

Beatrice left the room. 

“I’ll take you there,” he said, going with her. 

“So, what did you decide?” 

“I think I’ll continue to read,” he said. 

“Tell me a little. I used to read when I was younger, but with age, my eyes are getting bad.” 

“Novels?” 

“No, a little more than that. I learned the classics just a little. But little else. You may have gotten that curiosity about me,” she said. 

“But it’s not encouraged in a woman.” He always noticed that, though he never had that in Cecelia. 

She gave a smile, not showing anything. “Do you want to hear the blunt truth of life as a woman?” 

Lorenzo nodded. 

“Dreams, no matter how sweet, are reserved for men. As a woman, you’ll need a husband to survive for anything or a male relative that’ll take care of you. They always molded your dreams to just one, marriage and family.” 

“Do you still remember what your dreams were when you were young?” 

“No, not anymore. If I did, it probably was rid out of me by my mother. To put your duty and responsibilities above all else, before anything else. But in a child, I want you to know yourself first before you go into a role, wholly immersing in it. Both Cosimo and I are guilty of that.”  

Until they left nothing of them, except what they expected of them. 

“The garden reminds me of things that I used to love, as much as all of you.”  

They had reached the rooms at last, before his mother disappeared. 

He spotted his uncle, who passed him by. “Thank you for passing him the book. I’ll do my best to speak to your aunt about it. But thank you.” 

He blinked.