very short story related to Italy

A former acquaintance's ancestors are from Italy. I think some of his grandparents were born in Italy. Maybe his parents. I never got to know him well enough to learn if his parents were born in Italy.

When I first knew him, he often talked with great pride about his Italian past. He especially loved his grandmother, although as I write that I realize I don't know which grandmother, maternal or paternal. They are both gone.

One of his grandparents, and perhaps one of his parents, used to live in and own an old house in Lucca, Italy. He has visited the home, which his relatives sold when they emigrated, I guess. I know his family no longer owns it.

He told me a charming story about this house. The top step to get to the front door was so worn that it had a permanent dip. That's an old stone step! It was enough of a hollow spot on the stairs that his grandmother, or great grandmother, or some relative, would pour milk in the stair hollow spot for the cat.

I love that image, stairs old and worn down then using the wear practically to make milk available to a cat or two.

I want to own a house with a stair like that.

Such a house seems, at least to me, like it would be a lovely setting for love, maybe magic and princes and princesses going to balls in horse-drawn carriages in exquisitely beautiful clothes. Starry nights. Warm breezes. Water views. Of a Stega, a witch, casting love potions and spells. I could most def visualize Cinderella pouring milk in the top step, milk for the cat. I have no image in my mind of the house, which was likely not a castle if an ordinary family lived in it. I have an image of stairs, stone, flowers, and beautiful views. In the movies, Cindrella always leaves from the ground level. In my imagination, make her Italian and have her descend an old stone staircase under the stars.

I have no idea if Lucca has water views, never having been. My mom spent a couple summers in Lucca. Mom went to paint all summer. She did some beautiful paintings. One was a self portrait she called cappuchino. She is in a blue robe, her ubiquitous ciggie in her hand. You see the smoke drifting up from her hand, steam rising from the cappuchino. And her face looks just like her. My mom was beautiful, even as she aged. As a young woman, she was smoking hot beautiful. As is my sister, daughter and niece. How come I got the ordinary looks?!!

I guess I have a smoking hot beautiful heart. I do, you know.