Chapter 11 - MATTEO CHOSE A COLLEGE THREE STATES AWAY AND I REALIZED SURVIVAL HAD NEVER MEANT KEEPING HIM CLOSE
Matteo chose college in Boston.
I objected internally.
Strongly.
Externally—
“Good school.”
Elena stared at me after he left the room.
“What?”
“You look ill.”
“He is moving nine hundred miles away.”
“He is eighteen.”
“Yes.”
“This is normal.”
“Nothing about his life is normal.”
“Exactly why he deserves some.”
I hated logic.
Matteo had been accepted to Northwestern.
University of Chicago.
Michigan.
Boston University.
Several others.
He chose Boston because of a biomedical engineering program and a pediatric technology lab.
I immediately suspected destiny.
“Heart devices?”
I asked.
“Some.”
He rolled his eyes.
“I also like Boston.”
“You hate cold.”
“Chicago is cold.”
“Boston has worse roads.”
“That is not a college criterion.”
“It should be.”
He smiled.
Then serious.
“I want distance.”
That hurt.
He saw.
“Not from you.”
“Okay.”
“From Moretti.”
There.
Fair.
“In Chicago, everybody knows.”
“Teachers.”
“Parents.”
“News.”
“People either think I’m dangerous or inspirational.”
He looked exhausted.
“I want to be the idiot freshman who forgets laundry.”
Rebecca had once told him he was allowed ordinary failure.
Apparently he intended to test the theory.
“You can go.”
I said.
Matteo stared.
“You cannot forbid me.”
“I know.”
“Then why say—”
“Because I’m trying to sound supportive.”
He laughed.
“Needs work.”
Move-in day nearly killed me.
Not medically.
Emotionally.
We flew commercial because Matteo insisted.
I objected.
He won.
I sat in economy-plus like a displaced monarch.
Elena enjoyed every second.
At the dorm, families carried plastic bins.
Fans.
Bedding.
Mini refrigerators.
A father wearing cargo shorts almost hit me with a lamp.
No one apologized appropriately.
Matteo loved it.
His roommate, Dev Patel, came from New Jersey.
Computer science.
Did not recognize me.
Miracle.
Then Matteo introduced—
“My dad, Luca.”
No Moretti.
Just Luca.
Dev said—
“Cool.”
I almost hugged him.
I did not.
We assembled a shelf.
Badly.
Sofia would have laughed.
Elena eventually took the screwdriver away.
“You two run companies?”
“Not Matteo.”
“Still.”
Before leaving, I gave him an envelope.
He groaned.
“What?”
“Not governance.”
“Good.”
Inside—
a handwritten copy of Sofia’s first line from the letter.
Wanting is not proof.
And Rebecca’s line—
Live your life. That is enough.
Matteo read.
Then hugged me.
Publicly.
I nearly died again.
“Call.”
I said.
“I will.”
“Not only when something is wrong.”
“I know.”
“Medication.”
“Dad.”
“Appointments.”
“Dad.”
“No strange supplements.”
He stared.
Fair.
Old trauma.
“Sorry.”
His face softened.
“I know.”
Allowed.
We left.
I made it to the rental car.
Then cried.
Elena waited.
No teasing.
For five minutes.
Then—
“You threatened death because he ate half a strawberry once.”
“I remember.”
“Now he lives in a dorm.”
“This is worse.”
She laughed.
Boston changed Matteo.
Good.
He failed his first calculus midterm.
Rebecca would have been proud.
He called furious.
“I got a C-minus.”
“Congratulations.”
“What?”
“Ordinary failure.”
“Dad.”
I laughed.
He studied.
Improved.
No Moretti intervention.
He dated someone named Leah for three months.
She broke up with him.
I disliked her immediately.
Elena told me I was not allowed.
“Private feeling.”
I said.
“Fine.”
Matteo called after midnight.
“She said I make everything intense.”
I almost laughed.
Genetic or environmental?
Both.
“What did you say?”
“That she’s wrong.”
“How did that go?”
“She broke up harder.”
I laughed.
“Helpful.”
Then I said something I wish someone had told me at eighteen.
“You can be hurt without making her wrong.”
Silence.
“Did Elena teach you that?”
“Yes.”
“Figured.”
He survived heartbreak too.
Years passed.
Matteo chose biomedical engineering formally.
Not cardiology.
He did not want to be a doctor.
He wanted to work on pediatric monitoring systems that children could wear comfortably at home.
Sofia had once discovered medical supply corruption.
Matteo chose medical technology.
Not because destiny required it.
Because he liked engineering.
That distinction mattered.
He interned at a startup unrelated to Moretti.
Market pay.
No family investment.
I checked.
Quietly.
Elena discovered.
“You ran a background check?”
“Public due diligence.”
She stared.
“Luca.”
“I did not interfere.”
Progress graded on curve.
During junior year, Jonah—the boy from the cardiac center—had another health scare.
Not catastrophic.
Medication complication.
Matteo flew back to Chicago for a weekend.
Sat beside him.
Jonah was twelve now.
Called him—
“Old heart guy.”
Tradition.
Matteo later told me—
“I used to think being donor recipient was the biggest thing about me.”
“And?”
“It’s one thing.”
Good.
That was adulthood.
Not erasing the extraordinary.
Putting it in proportion.
The Reeds remained part of his life.
Ava married.
Matteo attended.
He sat with Rebecca and Thomas.
No photographers.
Gabriel’s photograph at the memorial table.
Matteo wore the Cubs cap after dinner.
Rebecca cried.
Again.
Life did not solve grief.
It made room around it.
Then, senior year, Matteo called me.
“I got an offer.”
“Job?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Boston.”
My chest tightened.
“Congratulations.”
“And one in Chicago.”
I said nothing.
He laughed.
“I can hear you not saying it.”
“What?”
“Come home.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were thinking.”
“Yes.”
“Which do you want?”
He went quiet.
“I don’t know.”
“Good.”
“You always say that.”
“Because certainty is overrated.”
Then he asked—
“If I pick Boston, are you disappointed?”
There.
The final test.
I looked at Sofia’s Japanese maple outside my study window.
When Matteo was three, all I wanted was another day.
Then another.
Then another.
Somewhere along the way, fear convinced parents that survival means closeness.
It doesn’t.
A child survives in order to leave you too.
“I’ll miss you.”
I said.
“That is not the same thing.”
Silence.
Matteo exhaled.
“Thanks, Dad.”
He chose Boston.
I hated it.
I was proud.
May you like
Both.
Always both.
