The Sicilian Inheritance

by Jo Piazza

I stretched out on a chair like a wild cat in a warm patch of sun and listened to the waves lap against the shore. I knew it was exactly what heaven would feel like.

“I will avenge my brother’s death by making lives better, not by taking them,” he insisted. “Sicilians too often cover our fears and insecurities with violence and it does us no good.”

was taught by my mother, and she learned from her mother before her. She always told me there are some things women know intuitively, especially poor women, the ones who are the most underestimated. We know our bodies better than anyone, but we are often afraid to embrace that knowledge.

I knew this fish came straight from the sea to this table. I bowed my head in a silent prayer and thanks to the animal for sharing its body with us. I’m not a religious person, but you can’t help considering an animal’s soul when you hold its bones and muscles in your hands and tear apart its flesh in order to nourish yourself.

She’d endured a lifetime of setbacks and still managed to reinvent herself and find a new path in life.