Chapter 28 - viola died without ever meeting luca again
Viola died when Luca was twenty.
Stroke.
Fast.
Not instant.
She lived three days.
Carlo called me.
Not to demand anything.
“Mom’s dying.”
I knew what the sentence wanted from me even if Carlo did not say it.
Come.
I did.
Elena did not.
Luca chose not to.
No one argued.
I stood beside my mother’s hospital bed for forty minutes.
She looked old.
Very old.
The woman who once controlled rooms with one glance could barely lift her hand.
I expected anger.
Instead I remembered childhood.
Viola fixing my tie before school.
Viola sitting beside me when I broke my wrist.
Viola screaming louder than anyone when I graduated.
Viola humiliating Elena.
Viola arranging a chair beside a fire.
All one person.
That was the cruelty of complicated grief.
She opened her eyes once.
“Matteo.”
“I’m here.”
“Luca?”
“No.”
Her face changed.
I did not apologize.
“He chose not to come.”
A tear moved toward her temple.
Maybe grief.
Maybe regret.
Maybe anger.
I did not decide for her.
“Is he well?”
“Yes.”
That was all I gave.
Not school.
Not girlfriend.
Not photographs.
Not a life she no longer had access to.
“He’s well.”
Viola closed her eyes.
She died the following morning.
At the funeral, Luca attended.
His choice.
Carlo stood far away.
Luca did not approach.
Afterward my son asked:
“Are you sad?”
“Yes.”
“You hated her.”
“Sometimes.”
“You loved her.”
“Yes.”
He looked confused.
I smiled sadly.
“Both.”
Luca nodded.
“I don’t feel much.”
“That’s okay.”
“Is that bad?”
“No.”
He stared toward the grave.
“She was my grandma.”
“Yes.”
“But I didn’t know her.”
“Yes.”
“Do I have to miss what I never had?”
“No.”
He exhaled.
Then:
“Do you miss who she was or who you wanted her to be?”
The question nearly destroyed me.
“Both.”
He put one hand on my shoulder.
Not because he needed to comfort me.
Because he wanted to.
I accepted it.
No deathbed reunion.
No last-minute forgiveness.
No fictional closure.
Viola died with consequences intact.
And I grieved my mother without reopening the door she had once made unsafe.
May you like
That was possible too.
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