Neither he nor his mother heard anything from the Police or from Detective Scala, who was conducting the investigation, and having requested not to have any mention about the details on the press, the Newspapers limited their articles to short columns about the news in the case.
If there was something Giulia always despised, it was the way some of the press tried to intrude into the private lives of common citizens, when a murder happened.
Certain things had nothing to do with the reporting of the news, and everything with the need for sensationalism that sells more copies of this or the other paper. She felt disgusted by the way they were feeding their readers with fabricated news and hypotheses, theories about who could have been the killer and why he murdered a man like Claudio Calvani.
Certainly, according to Giulia, a jerk like her ex-husband got exactly what he deserved, yet this was simply her own opinion driven mostly by the bitterness she feared would have resided in her heart for the rest of her life.
Nevertheless, that disgrace wasn’t something she wished for her son, who obviously viewed his father as a God, a person to emulate, not for what concerned the way he treated his wife, but for the way he conducted his business. For the sake of her son, she stepped in to help with the funeral, once the body would be released by the forensics. One thing she was expecting was Luciano to receive the letter from the attorney with the invitation to the reading of Claudio’s holographic wills. The firm had to remain in business and needed a leader who could take charge.
Returning from work, Giulia found two letters bearing the name of the Antonioni law firm on the mailbox. One, as she expected for Luciano, and the other was the invitation to the reading extended to her.
“Luciano!” she called from the main door as she entered the apartment. “There’s a letter for you. It’s the invitation for the reading of your father’s testament.”
Coming from his room, Luciano gaped at her as if he wasn’t expecting anything like this to happen. “How do you know what it is?” He wondered, taking the letter in his hands.
“Because I received exactly the same one from your father’s attorney, and there was the invitation,” she replied, slipping her heels away with a deep relieving sigh.
With a puzzled expression frowning his brows, Luciano opened the letter and started to read it, “It will be for Friday,” a mumble escaped his mouth.
“Are you busy?” Joked Giulia.
“No, I was wondering. What I am curious to know is who else had been invited. Should we tell this detail to the Police?” He wondered, following his mother to the living room as she collapsed on the couch.
Yawning and massaging her neck, she tried to recall what was agreed with the detective last time she met him. “I guess, at least Detective Scala should be informed. All the people who will benefit from your father’s death are those who are most likely to be suspected of his assassination. As for me, I’m surprised to be invited, I was sure your father left everything to you and his new girlfriend.” That last word was spelled with an unveiled bitterness tone in her voice.
Luciano sat down beside his mother, holding her to himself. A smile brightened up her face as she kissed his hair, “I’m sorry if my bitterness toward your father has spoiled your memories. The fact that it didn’t work between us, shouldn’t mean you had to take part in our divorce. You know he loved you as much as I do,” she said, feeling elated to have Luciano once again back in her life.
They both remained holding each other in silence for a while.
“You have all the reasons to be bitter toward him. He hasn’t been a model of fairness toward you. Regardless of whether he is now dead, we should forget about old grudges.” He stood smiling at her.
“One thing for sure, is sooner or later, you’ll need to step in and think about the business he’d been building up. It wasn’t simply something he built for himself. He always hoped you would have taken over on leading the firm. Perhaps, after this reading and when the bureaucratic matters will be solved, you’ll have to make a decision about it.”
Luciano nodded slowly, thinking about the way he would have approached the issue. His intention was not to sell the business, that was something he didn’t want to even think about. Yet, someone needed to take the reins and start working in the same direction his father did.
Glancing at his thoughtful expression darkened by concern and perhaps, also fear, she understood he was probably too young and inexperienced to completely run the entire business alone.
From the day they got married, she helped Claudio daily with the expansion of his company, helping with the bookkeeping, communications with the clients, and bureaucratic matters. She had her job at the administration of the National Postal Services, but she gladly sacrificed her free time to help her husband expand and fulfill his dream to bring the family business to its maximum potential.
She stood from the couch and walked to the bathroom, willing only to have a long shower and wash away all the tiredness of the working day, together with the weight of the memories the testament brought back to her mind.
We thought this was going to be something to bond us together; a project for our lives and for the future of our children, she thought as she enjoyed the warm and relaxing shower. Everything changed when our lives settled into a routine and Luciano turned eighteen years old. Then, he met her, and our life together meant nothing anymore.
She slipped into something more comfortable other than her business attire and
