With that he closed his eyes to kiss her, but their lips would never meet, for suddenly the front door burst open and in rushed Ernestina, Demetrio’s wife. At finding the two of them embracing, she looked down at the floor in embarrassment.

Giancarlo immediately released Antonella. There were many women who liked to gossip in Castelalto, and Ernestina was the worst. Giancarlo exchanged glances with Antonella. They both knew what was coming. The word of what Ernestina had discovered would spread like wildfire through the village. Giancarlo knew what it meant for him, and worse, what it meant for Antonella. For the life of him, though, he could not understand why Ernestina had chosen to come through the door unannounced at just that moment.

“Giancarlo,” said Ernestina breathlessly, still looking down. “You must come at once!”

“What is it, Ernestina?” he snapped.

“It’s your father,” she told him. “There’s been an accident.”

No one saw how it happened, but that afternoon Roberto Rosa fell from a telephone pole and died instantly when he hit the ground. Neither Giancarlo nor Giorgio would learn of his fate until after each arrived at the hospital where their father had been taken. While Giorgio had broken down and wept openly, Giancarlo choked back his tears and hid his grief deep inside his troubled heart.There it would stay buried for a very long time.

In the ordeal that followed in the days ahead—the wake, the funeral, the reception afterwards at the house—Antonella stayed by Giorgio’s side, and kept Giancarlo at a distance. It was a time of great anguish for him. Throughout it all, no one in the village breathed a word to Giorgio about how Ernestina had found her together with his brother, and indeed no one ever would. All the same, Giancarlo could see it in their eyes, the looks of recrimination, and he felt the walls of Castelalto closing in around him.

For three days after the funeral Giorgio and Giancarlo barely spoke to one another, but instead sat about the house in somber silence. Then one night, while he sat at the table lost in thought, Giorgio suddenly gave a sigh and said, “Basta.” Enough. Then, as if he had come to a resolution about something, he slapped his hand down on the table, got to his feet, and hurried out the door.When he returned sometime later, he asked Giancarlo to sit down and talk with him.

“There is something I need to tell you,” said Giorgio.

Giancarlo had already anticipated the coming of this conversation and was not of a mind to take part in it.

“Don’t waste your breath,” he said bitterly. “I already know all about the house. What’s yours is yours, just as it has always been. What do I care?”

“What?” said his brother with a puzzled look, as if he had not understood, but by then Giancarlo had stormed out of the house.