Chapter 8 - Matteo Moves Upstairs
Matteo moved to the third floor at fifteen.
His idea.
Luca said no the first time.
That surprised him.
“I thought you wanted me to be independent.”
“I do.”
“Then?”
“You’re asking at eleven-thirty because you’re mad I told you to put your phone away.”
Matteo stared.
Fair.
The next morning he asked again.
“I want the room.”
Luca looked carefully.
“Why?”
“Because it’s bigger.”
Good.
Then:
“And I can have friends over without hearing every person downstairs.”
Also good.
Then:
“And because if I move myself, it doesn’t feel like she moved me.”
There.
Vanessa still in room years later.
Not physically.
As meaning.
Luca said:
“We can do a trial.”
Matteo groaned.
“Everything in this family is a trial.”
“Three months.”
Then:
“If you hate it, your old room stays a bedroom until then.”
No closet conversion.
Matteo agreed.
Move weekend.
He packed:
clothes,
books,
models,
computer,
photos.
One picture of Sarah went upstairs.
The casual den picture stayed.
No one declared symbolism.
Then his old room.
Empty.
Luca walked in.
Across the hall from his own room.
For years, the door had been open at night.
He felt something like grief.
Not Sarah.
Childhood.
He almost said:
Come back.
Instead he helped carry boxes upstairs.
Parenthood also means losing proximity gradually.
Then third-floor first night.
At 1:12 a.m. Matteo texted:
YOU AWAKE?
Luca:
YES.
Matteo:
THIS IS WEIRD.
Luca:
WANT TO COME DOWN?
Long pause.
Matteo:
NO.
Then:
GOODNIGHT.
Good.
Next week:
friends came.
Too loud.
Rosa received noise complaint from night staff? The household staff maybe.
Luca set quiet hours.
Matteo argued:
third floor was supposed to be his.
Luca answered:
room is yours.
house is shared.
Boundaries.
Then one friend spilled soda on new rug.
Matteo hid stain by moving chair.
Housekeeper found.
Luca made Matteo help clean and pay part from allowance.
No staff blame.
Good.
Then the closet plan.
At end of three months, Matteo stayed upstairs.
His old bedroom became:
not Vanessa’s second master closet.
Luca considered guest room.
Then storage.
Then home office.
Finally Matteo said:
“Make it a closet if you want.”
Luca laughed.
“Really?”
“It’s a room.”
There.
The room had lost emotional charge.
Luca converted half to dressing/storage and half to small reading room.
Not second master.
No one cared.
Then Matteo’s relationship with Vanessa.
They had no regular contact.
At sixteen, he ran into her at a hotel charity event with Luca.
She approached cautiously.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Then:
“How’s school?”
“Fine.”
Awkward.
Then she said:
“I heard you moved upstairs.”
Matteo stared.
“How?”
“Your dad mentioned it to someone. It got back to me.”
Not secret monitoring.
Chicago social circles.
Then she smiled.
“Do you like it?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“I’m glad.”
Matteo could have said:
See, you were right.
He didn’t.
Vanessa did not ask.
Then:
“I’m sorry again about how I tried to make it happen.”
Matteo looked older.
“I know.”
That was all.
No hug.
Then after she left, Luca asked:
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
Then:
“Don’t make it a thing.”
Luca learned.
No thing.
Then Matteo’s mother.
At sixteen he began remembering less.
That frightened him.
Her voice.
The exact way she said his name.
He told Dr. Feld during a check-in.
“Does forgetting mean I didn’t love her enough?”
No.
Memory changes.
He had photos.
videos.
stories.
But no obligation to preserve every sensory detail.
Then Luca and Matteo watched old home videos once.
Sarah laughed from a kitchen.
told Luca to stop filming.
Matteo age four ran through frame.
Matteo cried.
Then said:
“She sounds different than I remember.”
Luca nodded.
“Me too.”
Memory had already edited.
That was not betrayal.
Then one day Matteo chose to store some of Sarah’s childhood letters.
He no longer wanted them in room.
Luca asked:
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
No ceremony.
Archive box.
Then school independence.
At sixteen:
driver’s permit.
Luca wanted security driver still.
Matteo said:
“What is point?”
They compromised:
daytime local driving after practice.
No night alone first months.
Security not tailing unless specific risk.
Because Luca’s public profile carried some real security concerns.
Risk assessment, not paternal fear alone.
Then first fender bender.
Parking lot.
No injury.
Matteo called Luca terrified.
“Are you mad?”
“Yes.”
Then:
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Other driver?”
“No.”
Then process:
insurance,
report,
repair,
driving lesson review.
No taking keys forever.
Consequences:
pay deductible portion from savings/allowance over time.
extra parking practice.
Then Matteo said:
“Vanessa would say I’m irresponsible.”
Luca said:
“Vanessa is not here.”
There.
Stop using absent person as imaginary judge.
Then at seventeen:
college visits.
Matteo liked Northwestern? Too close maybe. University of Michigan? Let's use University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Luca wanted Chicago.
Matteo wanted distance.
Again:
room.
Distance.
Luca’s first instinct:
No.
Then he asked why.
“Because I want to know who I am somewhere nobody knows you.”
That hurt.
Reasonable.
They visited.
He applied.
Got in.
Then the night acceptance arrived, Matteo went to family den.
He sat in the chair beside Luca.
Same position as Sunday dinners.
“Are you going to be weird?”
“Yes.”
“Can I still go?”
“Yes.”
No punishment through belonging.
Then senior-year girlfriend Sofia? Avoid recurring names. Call Leah Chen.
She came to dinner.
Rosa asked seating.
Luca almost said:
Matteo sits beside me.
Old rule.
Then he stopped.
“Ask him.”
Matteo chose:
Leah beside him.
Luca across.
The seat beside Luca stayed empty until an aunt arrived late.
No crisis.
That was perhaps clearest sign.
At thirteen, the chair beside his father had been proof he belonged.
At seventeen, belonging was secure enough that he could sit somewhere else.
Then move to college.
The third-floor suite did not become shrine.
Luca left it as Matteo’s room for visits.
No one turned into gym.
At least first year.
Matteo came home less often than Luca wanted.
Called irregularly.
Sometimes only texted.
Luca worried.
Dr. Feld no longer therapist regularly, but her old sentence stayed:
Distance is not disappearance.
He repeated.
Then Thanksgiving first year.
Matteo came home.
He slept in third floor.
left laundry everywhere.
complained about food.
hugged Luca when he thought no one saw.
Normal.
At dinner Rosa? She was staff, not attending family dinner unless working. Fine.
Luca asked where he wanted to sit.
Matteo pointed to old place beside him.
“For nostalgia.”
Luca pulled chair.
Matteo sat.
No name card.
No rule.
No one earned it.
A chair can mean safety when safety is uncertain.
Then, if things go well, it becomes furniture again.
The trial move also gave Matteo responsibility he had not expected.
Third floor was farther from staff circulation.
If he wanted clean clothes put away, he had to put them in laundry system on time.
If he wanted snacks, he could not summon someone every hour.
If friends visited, he had to tell Rosa in advance because security needed names.
The first month he forgot all three.
Laundry piled.
He complained.
Rosa said:
“Your hamper pickup is Tuesday and Friday.”
“But nobody came.”
“Was it outside the door?”
“No.”
There.
Independence includes boring logistics.
Then friends arrived without notice.
Security held them at gate.
Matteo was furious.
Luca did not override.
“Why?”
“Because guest access is a safety rule, not punishment.”
Matteo texted names.
Waited ten minutes.
Friends entered.
The rule applied to everyone.
That mattered because rules feel less personal when they are actually consistent.
Then Matteo tried to use his surname.
“My dad owns the house.”
The guard replied:
“Your dad approved the policy.”
Matteo later admitted that was annoying.
Good.
At college, he learned even faster.
Dorm room:
smaller than third-floor bathroom.
Shared laundry.
No household staff.
One roommate who snored.
He called Luca after first week:
“I was an idiot.”
“About?”
“Rooms.”
Luca laughed.
Matteo continued:
“I thought third floor was far.”
Distance changes scale.
Then when he came home, he sometimes slept on den couch by choice after late movie.
No one interpreted regression.
A twenty-year-old can sleep on a couch without family theory.
The room that once threatened exile had become just a room he could leave and return to.
The third-floor move also changed Luca.
He stopped checking the hallway every night to see whether Matteo’s door was open.
For months he still woke and listened for footsteps across from his bedroom that no longer came.
Then he realized the silence was not absence.
Matteo was one floor above.
safe.
growing.
Luca’s task was not to keep his son physically close enough that loss felt impossible.
No parent can do that.
His task was to remain reachable without making reachability into a cage.
That distinction became easier once Matteo chose distance himself.
By spring, Matteo stopped referring to the third floor as “the room Vanessa wanted.”
He called it:
“My room.”
That small change mattered.
A place chosen later does not remain contaminated forever by the fact that someone once tried to choose it for you.
Ownership can return through consent.
By then the old floor plan felt less like a threat and more like a bad first draft.
May you like
Matteo never needed to destroy it.
He simply stopped needing it to define what the room meant.
