The Sicilian Inheritance

by Jo Piazza

“A real woman makes a good drink and lights her own fires, Sara,” she always reminded me. She told me lots of brilliant things over the years. I wish I’d written them all down. As Rosie and I had sipped our drinks, she said, “This is how I want you to remember me. A sexy, well-seasoned dame drinking her whiskey and getting ready to tell you a filthy joke.”

Cu picca parrau mai si pintiu. Those who speak little never have regrets. Ironic since Rosie rarely shut up.

I’m enclosing a deed in this letter, a deed for what I believe is a small plot of land that belonged to our family in Sicily before they came to America.

My love of learning made no sense to her. It was impractical at best and dangerous at worst.

Generations of women before me had lived their entire lives circling the tip of the small mountain doing nothing but caring for babies and husbands. For me that life seemed the worst kind of prison.

In the end I had wanted too much. I wanted success and love, a career and a child, a marriage and freedom. I’d wanted it all and I’d ended up with nothing.

Since becoming a mother, I barely had time to remember all the things I once wanted, all the lives I hoped to lead, but sometimes the desire all flooded back and I felt a small death.

The story of the sacrifice allowed them to rescue young women and girls from the village who needed to escape from abusive fathers or priests.

When you’ve stepped in the shit you’ve got no choice but to keep walking until you get home to clean yourself up.

“Welcome to Sicily. Holding and maintaining grudges is our national pastime. It’s our golf.”

He nodded, pleased to be given a task. I had learned this about men. As headstrong as they could be, they also liked to be told what to do as long as it didn’t question their own intelligence. Men needed to feel useful in a situation they could not control.

Men are easy to manipulate. You just have to know when to play the Madonna, when to play the whore, and when to play the broken bird.

It is more a way of life, a spirit, a story we pass down, a way of reminding ourselves that the only way for a woman to survive in this world is to help other women.

Serafina was having an affair with her best friend’s husband. The realization was heart-wrenching. She didn’t just betray her husband. She betrayed the woman who was closer to her than a sister.

It would be months before I realized the extent of my folly, before I knew without a doubt that the child growing in my stomach was Marco’s and not my husband’s.

Rose wanted you to learn how she lived, how she persevered against all of the odds, and I have given you that. Serafina was a badass woman like us who wanted more than the world was willing to give to her. She found a way to live on her own terms.”

Maybe permanency was not the only metric of success. My marriage didn’t work out, but I got a wonderful daughter out of it. My restaurant was a great success, just not forever because forever is hard. Maybe I couldn’t do it all and be everything to everyone and that had to be OK.