TUSCANY

There’s a place in Tuscany overlooked by a castle and surrounded by a patchwork of woods and wheat fields (which, since the switch to organic, are also planted with flax). At some point it became my home: San Casciano dei Bagni, in the province of Siena.

In my mind, my husband’s family house represented the restoration of an interrupted childhood, the place dearest to my heart where I could be a queen again, like the girl who used to twirl around in the halls of our seaside house. It was an upgraded evocation-restoration too, because sometimes the things we’ve lost can return in a more magnificent form: a 15th-century villa, a driveway lined with cypress trees, a swimming pool and a chapel (“Everyone come to my place for Mass!” I dreamed of saying). One day, far from now, I imagined they’d bury me there, and my daughter would only have to cross the courtyard to weep at my grave. “Picture our daughter dropping by barefoot to leave her mum a flower before diving into the pool. Because I’ll die young,” I used to say, hoping this matter would further the fulfilment of my dream. “Young but happy,” I would smile blissfully, already on my way heavenwards. “Thanks to you, who gave me this wonderful house, unlike my father who sold my childhood home.” The giver in question was supposed to be my husband.

For months we’d been discussing the prospect of leaving his small farm with its two bathrooms, two bedrooms and the sole comfort of a TV. Put simply: abandon the hovel, which was also in San Casciano, and move into the family villa.We argued because the giver of the villa refused to cooperate: “I’m not cut out for living in a big house with a cypress-lined driveway.” “I am, I am,” I yelled. “I’ve waited a lifetime for that house – the driveway, me by the pool, me absent-mindedly watering a rose bush, me, me, me! A whole lifetime,” I stressed tragically.

He defended his position with baseless arguments: “We can’t afford the upkeep. We have to think about our daughter’s future and her studies, not swimming pools.”

“One question,” I asked, shifting to a not-so-distant future.“Where will the girl celebrate her 18th birthday?”

The conversation went on like that, flaring up and dying down, only to kick off again with greater zeal.“I’m leaving you” (I said dashing to pack my bags).

“Leave me.”

So we ended up staying in the humble house, or rather the one we could afford with what we earned.

I realised that my mistake was marrying a man like him, when I could have been on a yacht or in a castle. Sure, I’d be with a less intelligent and less responsible man. And yes, maybe he wouldn’t be as honest or sensitive as my husband, or such a loving and ever-present father. Born in Orbetello (Italy) in 1972, Teresa Ciabatti writes novels, screenplays and short stories. Her last book, Matrigna (Solferino), is out this month in Italy. The previous one, La più amata (Mondadori, 2017), was f inalist at the Premio Strega.