Chapter Text
It was hellishly hot in Rome. It was the dying vestiges of August, after all, and the city felt the weight of it, the fatigue of several months of fierce sun, the tension of waiting for the heat to break, and for cooler days to come.
There was no air conditioning in Francesco’s office.
Office, was a charitable term, actually, for the repurposed storage closet in which he did his life’s work, but Francesco didn’t mind, mainly because it was a space that was wholly his. And - after living in the grand palace of his youth, he found he was much disillusioned with the concept of living in large, grand, and empty places - if he had ever entertained that illusion in the first place anyways. At times, in his weaker moments, he admitted that he was lonely enough in his small spaces already.
Francesco wouldn’t have minded air conditioning though, or perhaps, a window to crack open for some tepid air. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to the elbow and unbuttoned the collar as far as was still publicly decent, and was still sweating. Leaning back in his chair, he took off his reading glasses, tipped back his head, and closed his eyes. He felt irritable and uncomfortable, and perhaps it was just the heat, even though he should have been used to it by now, or maybe it was a sign, some uncanny foreshadowing that bad news was brewing and trouble lay in store for him.
--
Francesco had left his home in Florence practically as soon as he turned eighteen. He couldn’t get out from under his uncle and legal guardian, Jacopo’s iron fist fast enough, and he went to Oxford University in England, as far away as he possibly could, to do his undergraduate studies. It was prestigious enough that Jacopo had let him do it, even if he had very clearly made his disapproval felt. After three years away from his homeland though, Francesco had missed the sun, and the language and even the people, so he’d come back to the motherland, Italy, to do his graduate work. But he couldn’t bring himself to go back to Florence. The tainted and bittersweet memories of his home were still too raw and exposed. He had tried, and couldn’t reconcile the dichotomies that confronted him - it was a place where he’d been so happy with his parents and brother as a young child, and then the place where he’d been lonely and afraid and hurting for most of his adolescence. It was the place he knew more intimately than the back of his hand, like a handprint on his heart. It was a place where he’d never be more than the sum of his last name and his heritage, no more than his uncle’s political and corporate machinations, shunted into the role of banker, reduced to his expediency. A place where he knew he’d submit, bend and then break, to the tune of his uncle’s cruelty, because he’d long since had the fight broken out of him, if he’d ever possessed the capacity to be a fighter in the first place.
In short, it hurt him, to think of Florence.
So he’d settled for Rome.
Francesco had been in Rome for going on six years now, having gotten hired as a research fellow at the Sapienza University of Rome after doing his master's and doctorate there in Renaissance history. It was the sort of thing Jacopo looked down on. Then again, Francesco had always been the sort of person that Jacopo looked down on anyways.
He’d be twenty-seven this upcoming January. He felt weary of life and much older.
--
There came a knock on the door, and Francesco was jolted out of his reverie. Hastily putting his glasses back on, he called, “Come in!”
The door creaked open, and his supervisor, the head of the History Department at the university, made her way through the door, skirting gingerly past the towering piles of papers and books that wobbled and then threatened to topple at the slightest movement. The room was small enough that when she navigated the obstacle of the books, she stood perhaps only a meter length away from his desk. Martina was not a short woman, and the effect was rather that she took up quite a bit of room in the already almost claustrophobic space. Her arrival was already immediately not a good sign, as she was the sort of supervisor that preferred to let her underlings live and let live, and Francesco could count on one hand the amount of times he had seen her, much less interacted with her directly, since she had hired him on. Actually, the arrival of anyone at all, to Francesco’s office was a shocking and cataclysmic event in and of itself. Academics tended to be a reticent and obsessive sort, as a general rule, and Francesco was no different.
“Francesco,” she said, blunt as her manner was wont to be, but he detected both discomfort and a hint of sympathy in her tone and in the set of her severe features, which put him immediately on edge. “Have you checked your phone recently?”
“No, not for the last few hours,” he replied, caught off guard and fumbling for it, but there was no reception in his office anyways, so it wasn’t uncommon that messages got to him late, if ever anyone bothered to send him anything, which wasn’t often, for reasons delineated above.
Martina put a hand on his wrist to stop his fumbling. “Your family’s solicitor, a Luchino Tuzio, called the general office, because he couldn’t reach you on your cell. I’m deeply sorry to have to tell you this, Francesco, but your uncle, Jacopo, was involved in a car crash early this morning, and he’s passed away.”
It was as if time itself had stopped, or rather, it hadn’t stopped, it was just moving in a different, nonsensical way, thick and slow, like half congealed blood. “Ah,” he heard himself say, distantly, faintly, through a buzzing in his ears, a rush of blood to the brain. It was a surreal, sort of out of body experience. “I’ll just-” he motioned faintly, to the door. “I’ll just go out and call him back.”
He stood and went past Martina on autopilot. As he exited the room and went up the stairs, his phone regained reception, and the missed calls alerts started flooding in, little buzzes that went straight to the palm of his hand to accompany the buzz that was still in his ears and starting to spread down his body in tiny tremors.
“Luchino,” he said, without preamble, as soon as his call connected. “This is Francesco. I’ve heard the news.” He’d only ever seen the man twice - once as a toddler, with his parents, and then after his parents’ funeral. From the time he had gone to live with Jacopo to essentially now, it had been Jacopo that had interacted with him, as head of the Pazzi estate - but he supposed that the pretense of grief and genuine shock allowed him this bluntness and familiarity. That and the fact that the man had been the family solicitor for as long as Francesco could remember. It went without saying that he didn’t have particularly good memories associated with the man, and it looked unlikely to change at this point.
“Hello Francesco,” Luchino said, voice as bland and emotionless as Francesco had remembered it to be. “You have my sincerest condolences on the sudden passing of your uncle.”
Francesco closed his eyes and leaned against the stone wall, which was cool beneath his cheek. “What happened?”
“They’re not exactly sure yet, but it was simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the police think. It was a head on collision with another car at high speed - he was gone on impact - quick and painlessly. No foul play is suspected.”
“Okay.”
“You’ll need to come in as soon as possible to make arrangements for his funeral. And we need to discuss the matter of the will, and the affairs of the estate.”
“Okay,” Francesco rasped again, and it shook him to know that aside from his brother, Guglielmo, he was the last remaining Pazzi. In the eyes of Jacopo’s will and of the inheritance, he was, for all intents and purposes, the only remaining Pazzi, Guglielmo having long been written out and disowned for loving and marrying a Medici. He had thought he had known loneliness before, but in that moment, loneliness unlike anything he had ever experienced before rolled over him like a tidal wave, and threatened to consume him. And just as quickly as it had come, just when Francesco thought he might choke in it, it retreated.
“Okay,” he repeated, a third time. “I’ll catch a train tonight, and we can meet tomorrow.” He waited for Luchino’s affirmation, the promise that he would email Francesco some preliminary plans and confirmation of the meeting, and then hung up.
That morning when he woke up, not even in his wildest imaginations might he have thought or predicted what this day might bring. When he rose at seven in the morning to the sound of green parakeets chattering outside his window, he was thinking of nothing other than getting some coffee into his system. When he was drinking his coffee and buttering his bread for his sandwich that he would bring in to the office for lunch, he was thinking about what he might write about for his next monograph in his current series on the socioeconomic history of mid-Renaissance Italy. He was in the office by a quarter to nine. All these comfortingly bland things that he did every day, without fail. He’d cultivated his life carefully around this routine.
While he was reading up on Florentine money-lending in the 15th century, on the other side of Italy, his uncle was dying.
For a man with so many enemies, it was almost ironic that in the end, it was a car crash that had killed him, Francesco thought with a sudden spike of amusement. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to cry, and he felt numb and shaky, and very cold all of a sudden, even though it was still as hot as it had been half an hour ago, before he’d gotten the news. He was sad, and relieved, and scared all at once. He wished that he didn’t feel anything at all, and perhaps it would make this ordeal more bearable, but even when Jacopo had done his best to beat it out of him, his fatal flaw had never been not feeling enough, but rather, feeling too much.
--
Francesco had managed to book a ticket on the last Freccia Rossa train back to Florence from Rome, which left at ten minutes before nine in the evening, leaving him just enough time to get his things in order. After having secured a term of indefinite leave from Martina, still feeling like his brain was scrambled upside down, he’d headed back to his tiny little apartment, to pack a bag of clothing and essentials and close up his apartment for the foreseeable next few weeks. He hoped it wouldn’t take longer than that - the thought of returning to Florence itself was not a pleasant one.
The last time he’d been in Florence was for Guglielmo and Bianca de’ Medici’s wedding, six years ago, when he’d first returned from England. It had taken some gritting of teeth to make it through the entire weekend, but he loved Guglielmo, more than anyone in the world, and if anyone was worth returning to Florence for, it was his brother. Besides, Guglielmo’s wedding was a happy, happy affair, filled with music and laughter and light, even if Francesco had not much basis for judging such things.
Guglielmo, he thought, abruptly, and wondered if anyone had yet thought to alert his brother that Jacopo had passed. Most likely not. Francesco picked up his phone to call him, but found he didn’t have the energy, or the heart, perhaps, to go through the conversation all over again, to face someone’s sympathy, and pity, or to afflict anyone with his own. Better not now anyways, he thought. Better to not burden anyone else with this. Perhaps it was arrogance to think he could shoulder it all on his own, or perhaps it was cowardice in not being able to face up to reality. Francesco had never pretended to be a paragon of virtue. He was well aware of his numerous flaws.
He let his phone drop back onto the bed with a thud, and went back to mechanically folding some clothes into the duffel bag that he kept mainly for short conference trips. There was an unpleasant sort of fine tremor still running through his body, and twice, his hands shook so badly that he almost dropped something on the floor.
Holding his bag and the garment bag that kept a fine suit, one that he would doubtless have to wear to the funeral and probably to subsequent meetings of family business, he sank into the armchair nearest to the front door, covered his face with his hands and breathed deeply for some time, trying to calm the incessant racing of his heart, that sharp undercurrent of anxiety. He sat there for an interminable time, trying to find his nerve and steel himself. It was ridiculous, he thought, with a sliver of not unfamiliar anger and self-loathing. He was a grown man, and still scared to go back to his hometown. Still scared to face the spectre of his uncle, which loomed larger than ever in the event of his death.
Francesco stood and checked his watch. A little past eight o’ clock. He brought up a hand to massage his temple, next to his left eye, behind which a migraine had slowly begun to throb, even though he hadn’t noticed when it had begun. “Time to go,” he said, quietly, to his empty little apartment, which still stood so barren and spartan after six years of living there, and then he turned out the lights on that sad little scene and made for the train station.
--
There had been a time, ostensibly, where Francesco had been more a convivial child, even if it was by minute degrees.
Francesco had none of his brother’s natural openness, those smiles and freedom of body language, that so endeared him to others, even before he had opened his cheerful mouth. Jacopo had used to say that this quality of Guglielmo's was what made him soft and weak, but Francesco had always envied his brother this. He suspected, in his more introspective moments, that he had always been reserved and cautious by nature, but once upon a time, he’d had friends, and enjoyed the company and warmth of others.
And then had come those years of isolation in his adolescence, where he’d been mostly shut away from others aside from his uncle and Jacopo’s friends, homeschooled by a private tutor from age seven to eighteen. Guglielmo had been old enough to leave home soon enough, leaving Francesco to bear the brunt of Jacopo’s abuse. He did not begrudge his brother this - he would rather have - and had - borne a thousand blows from Jacopo than have had a hand laid on his beloved older brother. And how could Guglielmo have known later how bad it got, when Francesco could hardly even articulate the horror of living with Jacopo himself now, much less as a frightened fifteen year old?
By the time he emerged from the proverbial prison of Palazzo Pazzi, the overall effect was that he didn’t quite know how to talk to people anymore, at least in the ways that preceded a friendship.
He’d tried, for a time, when he’d first left to go to Oxford, putting himself out there, and trying to join societies and attend the parties that he was invited to. It was uncomfortable though, to force himself out there when all he really wanted to do was curl up back in his little room with a book and a cup of thick hot chocolate that reminded him of home in the simplest of ways, free of all the baggage. He struggled with this conundrum later. Did he have a right to feel lonely and isolated when it was of his own making? He wanted to be alone, or at least, to exist in a carefully controlled environment of his own making, and then, all of a sudden he didn’t. When he was with people, he was exhausted, and when he was by himself, he wanted - he wanted something, someone, to reach out for. That had always been the issue. He had always wanted a hand to hold, but when it was extended, he couldn’t bring himself to trust enough to take it.
He was no good at forging these bonds of friendship anyways. This he knew for sure, because a few weeks into this uncomfortable existence, he’d stumbled upon two of his classmates in the kitchen of some house party, gossiping about him.
“What do you think about Francesco?”
“What about him?”
“Oh he’s nice enough, sure, and smart as hell, and pretty attractive too, if you’re into that brooding type, but if you get down to it, but it’s just so hard to talk to him, you know? And there’s something so unsettling about the way he looks at you.”
“Ah, I know what you mean. He’s really awkward, poor guy, just skulks around everywhere, doesn’t say much, flinches a lot when people come up to him. Doesn’t know how to talk to people for sure. Did you see him last week when some girl asked him to dance? Sheer fucking terror, I tell you.”
Some laughter at his expense.
It had hurt, even if it wasn’t untrue, and even if it wasn’t necessarily meant unkindly. He'd thought of telling Guglielmo this during one of their weekly phone calls, but knew that while his brother would rush to assure him that it wasn’t true, in Francesco’s heart of hearts, he knew that it was true. So he’d beat a hasty retreat, and hadn’t tried to venture out since.
These days, he spoke to Guglielmo over the phone weekly, checked in with his adviser, and had academic conversations and collaborations with his colleagues. On occasion, when he went to academic conferences both inside and out of Italy, he’d talk to fellow historians and researchers. He’d nod to his neighbors when he saw them, coming in and out of work, although he had his suspicions that the cagey fellow that lived three doors down, was running a very elaborate and involved drug trafficking scheme. When Jacopo called, every so often, typically to yell at him for an hour straight about how he was shaming the family name, and to come back to Florence immediately to help run the bank, it wasn’t really the sort of conversation that necessitated Francesco’s verbal involvement.
This was really the extent of his human interaction. If it was sad and lonely, then that was all right. Francesco had forgotten how to be anything else.
--
Francesco arrived in Florence at around half past ten, having given in and swallowed a couple Advil dry in an attempt to ease his migraine on the way there. It hadn’t kicked in yet though, and when he got off the train at Santa Maria Novella, all he wanted to do was find some place where he could lie down and close his eyes, and leave this awful day behind.
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply for a moment. Yes, this was Florence, the smell of it, the taste of the wind in the air, the rush and crowd of it, the weight of its history, emanating from the stones beneath his feet. He would know it blindfolded and half dead. It was bittersweet, this homecoming. He’d been running away for so long. He’d longed to be back home for so long, and at the same time, he couldn’t bear to go back, or be back.
He hadn’t really been in the frame of mind to plan things out thoroughly in his rush to return home, but he supposed that he’d be staying at Palazzo Pazzi, his ancestral house, empty now that Jacopo’s body was presumably lying cold and dead in the morgue. It wasn’t a pleasant thought - neither the idea of going back to Palazzo Pazzi, nor the idea of Jacopo’s dead body - and Francesco’s mouth felt dry all of a sudden. Annoyed with himself for being so maudlin, he shouldered his bag and started the fifteen minute walk.
When he approached the colossus of building that was Palazzo Pazzi, he was grateful to see that the lights outside had been turned on, and that the old estate caretaker, the familiar figure of that whip thin man, was sitting outside, waiting for him. Somehow, his brain had thought, if only he could just reach Florence, if only he could just reach Palazzo Pazzi, that his journey would be done. He hadn’t put much thought into how he’d get in, without a key, and was abruptly thankful that Luchino had presumably alerted the staff.
“Signor Pazzi,” the caretaker said, rising and coming down the steps to meet Francesco. He dropped a heavy iron keyring into his palm. He looked like he wanted to say something, to offer his condolences, extend a hand in comfort.
“Thank you,” Francesco said, dully, to head the pity off at the pass. He didn’t think he could handle it if someone started spouting false platitudes about what a great man Jacopo was, and how he’d be missed. “Good night,” he added, turned and unlocking the great heavy front door, then shutting it behind him, with a final thud.
And then he was inside the courtyard. It was the first time he had been back here since his desperate flight away from this house and place at eighteen. It was like stepping back in time, because nothing had changed since he’d been away. The pristine, marble archways, the waving fronds of plants in their intricately painted pots, the sculpture poised on the fountain in the center of the pavilion, burbling steadily away. Now here was the site where he’d been the happiest, and the site where he’d been the lowest he’d ever been. Here was an exercise in opposites.
A harsh and artificial light emanated from the hanging lamps that hung around the courtyard, but they were not enough to chase away the shadows that lurked in the corners, and like a camera flash going off, he was suddenly thrust back into time, those hundreds of instances where he’d been shoved down onto the marble floor and been roared at, kicked at, spit at, the way his blood and tears had run on these very stone tiles, to be washed away by day, and then renewed by night, and he had scrabbled, clawed his way away from Jacopo, his efforts fruitless. Those thousand nights where he had wept into the fountain, locked out of his room as a punishment, completely and utterly alone, missing his parents, missing Guglielmo, missing friendship and family, and all the kindnesses extended from those relationships, hugging himself to keep warm and to keep from fracturing into pieces.
Francesco staggered, almost going to his knees, heart pounding suddenly, breath coming in wheezes, tears blurring his eyes. He could not carry this weight of his past, he thought, agonized, half mad with sudden fear. It was too heavy, it hurt too fucking bad to have to think about.
He could not stay here. How could he have ever thought he could? He’d have to get a hotel room somewhere, at least for the night, or, more probably, for the next few weeks. Steadying himself, although he felt as though he might shatter at any moment, he picked up his bags from where they had fallen in his panic, and made his way out of the Palazzo, exiting just as quickly as he had come.
Eight years later, his years of adolescence remained a great chasm of unresolved agony.
--
The light of morning woke him. There was a brief instant of blessed disorientation where Francesco didn’t know where he was, and didn’t remember the events of the past day. A moment where the sun slatted across his white bedsheets in a sort of beautiful, dappled pattern, and Francesco was warm and still half caught in the threads of slumber. Then it came flooding back. It was morning. He was in Florence. He was in a hotel room. Jacopo was dead. He had things to do, today.
He thought about just staying in bed for the whole day and ignoring the whole lot, but it was more an exercise in impractical thoughts as comfort rather than something he was actually entertaining. What choice had there ever been for him but to keep moving forward? To keep getting out of bed no matter what.
It was about then that he realized how disgusting he felt. He’d collapsed into bed as soon as he could that last night, probably half scaring the hotel receptionist to death when he’d stalked in at nearly midnight and asked for an available room. It meant that he hadn’t showered since yesterday, after a full day of sweating in the heat, and then traveling. For someone with near pathological needs for cleanliness, it was nearly unbearable. His face felt puffy and sore from crying or maybe dehydration, even though he couldn’t remember it, although he supposed he must have wept last night at Palazzo Pazzi, or maybe even throughout the night, unwittingly, and his head still pounded, although it was not as insistent of a pain as last night. He thought that maybe he should be hungry, having not eaten since lunch yesterday, but he wasn’t.
With a groan, he hauled himself out of bed and went for the shower. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he shucked off his clothing, and he looked tired, pale, and wan. His hair was getting long again, and it fell into his eyes in a thick tangle.
There, under the spray of hot water, he was able to gather some presence of mind, and to think about what needed to be done. Of course he had a meeting with Luchino today, and then he’d presumably have to figure out the logistics of Jacopo’s passing. He let his forehead fall on the tiled wall. He’d never been one for making the big decisions, for leading the charge, but there was no one left, besides him, to do it. He finished lathering up his hair and started rinsing it out, and willed himself not to fuck everything up.
--
Ten in the morning found him in Luchino Tuzio’s office, a little ways outside of the city center of Florence. Close enough that Francesco had walked there, through the throngs of tourists and past the Duomo. It had still been early enough in the day that the sun hadn’t reached its peak yet, which meant it had been a very agreeable temperature, and further out of the city center, the grounds around the path were riotous with late summer sunflowers and what remained of the scarlet poppies. Francesco was in the habit of noticing and automatically cataloguing the little details - he’d had quite a lot of practice occupying himself by doing so whilst he sat alone at social gatherings.
They were having coffee, and there was a little spread of biscuits out on the table between them, and it was all a bit of a farce of a very pleasant meeting, when in reality, the reason they were convening was quite a bit more grim. Francesco sipped his coffee for lack of anything better to do, but didn’t touch the food. His stomach was still roiling too hard for that, although he knew, ostensibly, that he did need to eat something.
“Good to see you, Francesco,” Luchino said, raising thin eyebrows. “Thanks for coming so fast, and my condolences again, for your loss.”
The fact that Luchino put Jacopo’s passing as a “loss” sent Francesco into a little bit of a tailspin. It certainly wouldn’t have been a word he would’ve used to describe the event. He thought abruptly of the words sic semper tyrannis, and stifled a laugh, which was fucked up, but there it was anyways. He had a feeling that it wouldn’t be appreciated. “Thank you,” he managed to say.
“It hasn’t gotten out yet publicly, the news of Jacopo’s death,” Luchino said conversationally, as if they were just talking about the weather. Francesco kind of hated him for his blasé attitude, but only because he was jealous of it. “And given that he was quite the figure, with his status as former bank president, we’re going to need to make a brief announcement. I was thinking, a press release of some sort.”
“Fine,” Francesco said, putting down his coffee cup and then clenching his hands into fists underneath the desk so hard that his nails were pressing crescents into his palms.
“Now, have you given any thought to the funeral proceedings?”
“No-” Francesco paused. “No I haven’t thought of it, really, but-” He wondered if there was a way to say that he didn’t want a huge procession, nor a reception, and that the thought of giving a eulogy for his fucking bastard of an uncle was far beyond his capabilities to do without throwing up that didn’t make him sound like the bastard.
There was a beat of silence when Francesco didn’t continue. “No problem,” Luchino said smoothly. “I’ve made an appointment at the funeral home for you this afternoon, and the director should be very able in helping you decide how to proceed.”
He passed Francesco a memo, with an address and a time written on it, and Francesco took it mutely.
“Now,” Luchino steepled his hands together. “There is the matter of Jacopo’s last will and testament, and of course, the inheritance, and other such affairs. We could go over them now, or-” He looked at Francesco for a moment, who sat, silent and withdrawn in his seat, and took mercy. “-we could wait until after the funeral to continue.”
“After,” Francesco said. “Please.” He wondered if he looked as tired and frayed as he felt. He wondered if the abject terror he felt about taking on all of this at once was displayed as baldly on his face as he thought it might be.
“It can wait then, till after the funeral,” Luchino relented, nodding. “But you should know, that the Pazzi Bank, the estate, including the house and the fortune, should all fall to you now.”
They both knew what was going unsaid. Who else was there to inherit? Who else was there to carry on the legacy? To be heir was a burden that could hardly be borne.
--
If Francesco found it hard to ask people for help, it was only because he really didn’t have anyone to ask for help, and he’d fallen out of the practice. He’d been alone for so, so long, and he’d grown accustomed to it. But he stood here now in the hallway outside Luchino’s office and wanted desperately for someone. Someone to tell him it was going to be okay. Someone to make these terrible decisions for him. Someone to support him. His nerves were shot to hell and he wondered how on earth he would make it through. It was day one, and already, his mental state didn’t exactly bode well. As always, there had only ever been one choice, and so he steeled himself and dialed the number.
“Francesco!” His brother said cheerfully when he picked up. Guglielmo was almost always cheerful - it was like he didn’t know how to be anything else. It was one of those mysteries - that Francesco and Guglielmo were polar opposites in so many ways - in both appearance and demeanor - and yet, they had stayed each others’ closest confidantes. His brother, who took after his father, had grown tall, broad shouldered, and incessantly cheerful, and he, who took mostly after his mother, had remained quite small, slender, and serious. There was a natural levity in Guglielmo’s bearing that Francesco had never figured out how to mimic. “What a wonderful surprise to hear from you today! I was getting worried. You didn’t call yesterday, and you always call on Thursdays.”
“Guglielmo,” Francesco said, for lack of anything better to open with, for lack of breath around the lump in his throat to say anything else. It was a plaintive, child’s cry. Here in Florence, in this instant, it was what he felt reduced to - a child reaching out for a lifeline, for his older brother. “I’m in Florence. Jacopo’s dead, and I- I don’t know what to do.”
He heard his brother’s sharp intake of breath, and tried to modulate his own harsh breathing, and ease the tightness in his chest, even though he knew Guglielmo would hear it in his voice regardless. “Will you come, please?”
--
“You should have called me the minute you got the news,” Guglielmo said, firmly, but without a hint of judgment or reprobation. Francesco loved him all the more for it. “I would do anything for you, Ciccio, you know that.”
Guglielmo had left to get him almost immediately after Francesco had called, which was a good thing, because any longer on the phone, and Francesco would probably have lost it completely, which would have been a humiliating cherry on top of everything that had already happened.
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“None of that,” Guglielmo said, pressed Francesco’s face further into his shoulder by hugging him tighter. Francesco breathed in that familiar scent of spice, neroli oil, and oak. It had been six years since he had seen Guglielmo in person - six years too long. Every time he saw his brother - it was as close to coming home as he could imagine it. They stood there for at least five minutes, Guglielmo just holding him until he could collect the shreds of his dignity around himself, and pull himself away. It was a position they had adopted often when they were still only children who had just violently and abruptly been torn away from their parents by the newfound spectre of death, and thrust right into a new nightmare.
“Wow,” Francesco said, abruptly. “Can’t believe the bastard finally kicked it.”
There was a beat, and they both burst into laughter. It felt good, like the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds after a long storm.
After their laughter had died down, Francesco felt the need to say, “I don’t want you to think I’m grieving over his death or anything.”
A beat. “How do you feel? Or, what do you feel?”
“I’m not sure,” he responded truthfully. “So much, all at once. Relief, mainly. And then, sheer terror, at having to deal with everything alone. The bank, the estate, the funeral-” He exhaled hard. “Fuck!” He felt ashamed then, and selfish and unfair. After all, Guglielmo had lost an uncle too, even if the circumstances were somewhat different. Guglielmo had had his own differences with Jacopo, and had suffered manipulation and been sentenced disownment at his hands. “And you?”
“Relief, also. Some regret.” Guglielmo shrugged noncommittally, and then took Francesco’s hands in his own. “Let’s take it step by step for now. You’ve always been the smart one of the two of us, but let me help you take care of it for now. Whatever I can do. Yes?”
“Yes,” Francesco said, holding on tight to Guglielmo’s hands, thinking he had never been so thankful in his entire twenty-seven years.
--
They went together to the funeral home together to meet the director. The building was nondescript, and inside was decorated with warm colors and beautiful paintings, which was probably intentional, but the effect was essentially mitigated by the fact that there was a woman waiting in the lobby, hunched over in her chair, trying to suppress her crying but rather failing at it, so every sob that came from her looked and sounded as if it were punched out of her by force, that harsh, unpleasant sound, and Francesco flinched as he passed her. He might do well to remember that nothing good ever happened in funeral homes. He was struck by a sudden unpleasant query, a morbid wondering, if this was the funeral home that had dealt with the burial of his parents, but he wasn't brave enough to ask. The thought made his stomach turn anyways.
The funeral director, Giorgio - Francesco wasn't listening closely enough to really register his last name - was appropriately kind, sympathetic, and professional without being overbearing, and Francesco tried hard not to think about how he got so good at it. Guglielmo, bless him, took charge of the conversation from the get go, which allowed Francesco to zone out for a little while Giorgio droned on about God knows what.
His migraine had returned with a vengeance, that pounding behind his left eye, and he was so fucking exhausted, even though it was only mid-afternoon, that it was some time before he realized with a start that he must have missed a question, as both Giorgio and Guglielmo were looking at him expectantly.
“Sorry.” Francesco scrubbed at his eyes. “Could you repeat that?”
“Of course,” Giorgio said, sounding sincere. “I was asking if you’d thought about anything in particular that you might like for the casket.” He produced a catalogue from under his desk and Francesco was suddenly struck again by the wholly inappropriate urge to laugh. A catalogue, as if he were shopping for clothes or what the fuck ever else, instead of his uncle’s casket.
“Nothing like that,” he said, taking a brief glance at the ostentatious and embellished options and wincing. “Something as simple as possible. Black, if possible.”
“And the service? Perhaps a full mass and then public reception-”
“No,” Francesco said. “There'll be a funeral mass, but it’s going to be very small and private. Family only. No reception. No pallbearers. No flowers.” He massaged his temples, and felt Guglielmo put a hand on his knee underneath the table. “I want it to be quick and as simple as possible.”
“And the eulogy?” Giorgio ventured cautiously.
Francesco stayed silent. It was Guglielmo that answered for him. “No eulogy.”
--
He returned to his hotel room sometime after having dinner with Guglielmo. He’d wanted to beg off the meal because he felt like shit, even though he hadn’t really wanted to be alone either, but he hadn’t eaten all day and most of yesterday, and once Guglielmo had figured that out, there was really no way he was getting out of dinner. He hadn’t had the energy to contribute much to the conversation, but it was all right, because he’d never had to pretend around his brother, who knew him so well, and could easily fill the gaps in the conversation with updates on his life, his wife, Bianca, how they were thinking of trying for a child, how his work was going as the advertising manager of the Medici Bank, and other such comforting everyday prattle. Francesco was grateful for it.
He did, though, have the energy to engage in one particular and familiar battle with Guglielmo.
Over wine, after their meal was over, his brother had said, faux casually, “So when are you coming back to live in Florence?”
“We’ve had this conversation many times before. Probably never.”
“Ah good, you’re open to negotiation then. Why not? I know it’s not because you love Rome so much.”
Francesco bristled at this mostly true accusation. “Yeah well, not preferring Rome is different than actively disliking Florence. And this topic is still not up for debate, however much you might like to think it is.”
“You don’t dislike it. Florence, is home, for both you and me. We were happy here as children. You could be happy here again.”
He knew what his brother thought. That he was a recluse, and that it would be better for him to come back here, where Guglielmo could keep an eye on him and keep him company. Perhaps he thought that the reason Francesco couldn’t come back before was because of Jacopo’s presence, and with Jacopo out of the scene, he would be free to return. That was part of it, but the other part of it was that Florence still held too many unresolved memories that he had not the courage to confront.
But Guglielmo was right too. He didn’t dislike Florence at all. How could he, when so many years gone from the city, sometimes he still woke up half expecting to hear the chimes of Giotto’s bell tower? When every spring he still flung open the windows, expecting to smell the sweet scent of the blossoming wisteria? No, he missed it fiercely. Didn’t know how to stop missing it, God knows he’d tried.
The hotel staff had cleaned the room in his absence, and he found the sterility familiar, mainly because it reminded him of his apartment back in Rome. In his lonelier moments, he’d thought of perhaps adopting a cat from the local shelter, but when common sense returned, he realized that he already wasn’t doing such a bang-up job of taking care of himself, and it wouldn’t do to subject a poor cat to that sort of thing either.
He missed his careful routine - here, he felt rather like a floundering fish out of water.
He showered, even though he hadn’t done much of anything that day, and went to bed, hair still damp.
That night, he dreamed of his mother and father for the first time in a long time.
It was a childhood memory, rather, of that wondrous day when he was six years old, barely a year away from disaster and completely unknowing of it. Guglielmo had been at a friend’s house, and it had been just him, his mother and father, for that whole golden day. They’d taken a train out to a nearby lake, and on its sandy shores, his mother had spread out a red checkered picnic blanket and laid out a feast fit for a king.
He’d spent the afternoon playing in the cool waters with his father, diving in and out of the rippling waves, and then alternately dozing in the glorious summer heat under the shade of an umbrella with his mother, sun drunk. They’d built sand castles and his parents had looked over him indulgently as he ran around, searching for buried treasure, calling his name, “Francesco, Francesco!” whenever he got too far away. As the sun went down, that gorgeous sunset that turned the sky a kaleidoscope of reds, oranges and pinks, and the sand beneath his toes to gilt and gold, he’d sat right in between his mother and father, looking at the lights in the distance, across the lake, blink on, like little stars in the growing darkness.
By the time they’d gotten on the train to get back home, he’d been exhausted by the day, and his father had carried him home, half-asleep. Sandy and still smelling faintly of sun cream, the bridge of his nose newly freckled from the sun, his father had brought him into his room, where his mother tucked him in, smelling of roses and vanilla. Francesco would never forget it. She’d leaned in, and pressed kisses onto his cheek, her long gold earrings brushing his nose, while his father curved a large hand around his rumpled dark hair. “Francesco you are so, so loved,” she had said. “You are our son, and you are so loved. Never forget that.”
He woke up at five in the morning, his face wet with tears. Alone in that dark hotel room in the middle of the city that should’ve still been his home, he cried his heart out, although if pressed, he couldn’t quite say why. But deep down, he knew what it was; it was the memory of being loved that had broken him down, that visceral feeling of being held and cherished for once in his lifetime.
There was no way he was getting back to sleep after that, and so he lay in bed, still exhausted, thinking of everything and nothing at the same time, waiting for the sun to rise so that he could continue living his miserable, solitary existence. It was almost too depressing to bear thinking about.
--
He was not sad. Not really, or at least, not just. He was more overwhelmed. At least, that’s what he thought he was feeling. Sitting in church, listening to the priest drone on, giving the funeral mass, Francesco couldn’t really tell.
The announcement had run in the local paper and then circulated online, a few days ago, that Jacopo had died. It was nothing more than a short paragraph, barely longer than the width of a thumbnail, with date of birth and then death, and then his remaining family. Francesco had been petty enough to make sure that both he and Guglielmo were listed. If Guglielmo wasn’t a Pazzi, then neither was he. And - the added benefit was that it would have made Jacopo furious. Luchino had phoned to ask if there was any sort of obituary Francesco had wanted to write, and Francesco had told Luchino point blank that nobody would like the sort of obituary that Francesco wanted to write about his bastard of an uncle, and that had been that. It wasn’t like anyone who was in the know didn’t know that his uncle was a total bastard anyways. There was no need to pretend otherwise.
He imagined writing his own headline for the papers: Manipulative piece of shit finally gets what’s coming to him! Nephews thrilled. More on page 9. Involuntarily, the corner of his lips half-quirked up a little bit in amusement. Then he felt shame, hot at the back of his neck, at his own insensitivity and inability to forgive even a dead man, he looked back down and schooled his features into a scowl.
He was in a suit, and it was still hot as hell. He tugged at the half-Windsor knot that his tie made at the hollow of his throat. Wondered if he had tied it too tight or if he were feeling choked for different reasons altogether. Stared down at his dress shoes and willed himself not to get lightheaded. He wasn’t grieving, and he didn’t mourn the bastard, exactly. Anger was in there somewhere, that Jacopo had not only fucked up his entire childhood, but was continuing to fuck up his entire adulthood by saddling him with the Pazzi bank, and all the trappings that came with it. And somewhere in the back of his mind, was the incessant ringing of: What the fuck am I going to do? Over and over and over.
Yes, he thought listlessly. Given the circumstances, he couldn’t really be blamed for his numbness and general outwards apathy towards the whole situation.
Anyways, it was only him, Guglielmo, and Bianca in the church, sitting in the first pew, staring at the closed black casket that presumably housed Jacopo’s corpse. The funeral director had posited that it was traditional for the casket to be remain open, for a final viewing, but Francesco had flat out refused, and really, there was no one there to argue with him about it.
When he’d first seen Bianca, walking in with Guglielmo for the funeral service, beautiful and solemn in her black dress, she’d thrown her arms around him and hugged him, hard enough to make his joints crack. It had made tears rise up in his eyes, unbidden, at the truly unexpected affection, and he’d blinked them away, but not fast enough, and so she’d seen them. She’d gotten that fierce, protective look that mothers get over their children, and she’d told him that anything he’d needed, he should come to her. He wondered briefly what Guglielmo had told her - about him, about their past, about living with Jacopo. Wondered if she thought her tears were over the bastard, or if she knew enough to guess the real reason behind his tears.
The mass was drawing to a close, and several people that the funeral home had hired on to carry the casket emerged from the back of the church to take the casket a little ways away, to the cemetery near the church where generations upon generations of Pazzis had been laid to rest. The three of them stood as well, and made their way somberly out of the church behind the pallbearers.
They stood above the grave site, and Francesco watched as the casket was lowered deep into the earth, disappearing from sight, and the priest delivered the last rites. Inexplicably, he shuddered a little, even though it was still warm at sunset, and Guglielmo dropped his wife’s hand to wrap an arm around his shoulder.
It was over, and Francesco still felt little to no resolution.
--
After the funeral had ended, they stood for a long time, the three of them, at the gate of the cemetery, until the sun had almost dropped completely out of view and it was beginning to get dark. Bianca and Guglielmo spoke about him in hushed, concerned whispers, as if he couldn’t clearly hear them, even though he was but a few feet away from them. Francesco might have found it almost offensive, but he supposed it was understandable, given how in shock he still felt and probably looked. And - it was difficult to summon up enough energy to care about anything.
He thought about his apartment back in Rome, and while he didn’t miss it exactly, being here in Florence was exactly what he had been afraid of. He was too close to all the roots and sources of his heartbreak.
“Should he be alone right now?”
“I don’t know.”
His brother’s hand on his shoulder. “Ciccio? Would you like me to stay with you at the palazzo tonight?”
“Oh,” said Francesco, a little distantly. He was processing the conversation like he was an outsider to it, and he felt himself speaking, rather than as if he himself had initiated the action. “No, no I-” he cleared his throat. “I’m not staying at Palazzo Pazzi. I’m in a hotel.”
“Francesco!” Guglielmo exclaimed, aghast.
“I couldn’t-” Francesco looked up, unable to finish the sentence, the reason, voice growing thick in his throat, eyes begging his brother to understand. Guglielmo did, of course he did, and his eyes grew softer yet, and he tugged a slightly resisting Francesco into a gentle embrace. Francesco put his forehead on his brother’s shoulder and huffed out a breath, but he could not let go of the tightly coiled tension in his body, otherwise he knew he would fall apart, just like that.
Bianca put her steady hand on his shoulder, and he turned to look at her. “This won’t do,” she said, and her gaze brooked no argument. “You are to stay with us in our home, in Palazzo Medici. There is more than enough room, and you need to be around people right now.”
“Your brother won’t mind?” Francesco asked, and he tried to inject some derision into his voice, but he was so, so tired, and it came out soft and hesitant instead. He could see it now, playing through his head, his childhood best friend, that magnificent, golden haloed boy, who he himself, had rejected cruelly on orders from Jacopo that last time they had really spoken to each other. How foolish he had been. But back then, he had been foolish about a great many things.
“Lorenzo - and Giuliano - will have to deal with it,” Bianca said firmly, with the gravitas of one who knew her order should be obeyed or else, and it was this assertiveness that made Francesco weak with relief, and offered him a measure of calm like a sweet balm to the soul. Her face grew gentle as she looked at him in the eyes, deep blue boring into deep brown - she was a tall woman, and Francesco not a very tall man, so they were practically the same height - and he felt like she could see right through his toppling facades, his thin veneer of composure, right into his anguish and pain. “We’re family, Francesco.”