From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home(56)

After his death, I feared that our friends would stop coming over because I was not like him. I didn’t have his easygoing, drop-by-anytime, open-door policy. I was more rigid, a woman who relied on making plans to the point of pathology. But I hoped that by hosting this gathering I could bring back both some of the spirit of Saro’s conviviality and a house full of people eating, spilling wine on the table, and laughing at years of memories.

I went back inside the house and dumped a minimountain of fresh fava beans from the garden onto the kitchen island, ready to make his favorite spring dish, but I couldn’t remember all the steps. I remembered the shelling and boiling part. But the rest was vague. Should I puree them with a bit of the water they were boiled in, or should I make broth? Should I add garlic or shallots? Garlic, I thought. Pepper? How much olive oil? Would butter work?

When in doubt, there was only one other person I could call. Nonna.

“How are things in town?” Apart from cooking tips, she was now the only person with whom I spoke Italian regularly. Our thrice-weekly conversations kept me somewhat fluent, a tie to my former life. It was the way we stayed connected and kept current with how each of us was doing in Saro’s absence. He had talked to his mother daily after his father had died. It seemed natural that she and I keep up the tradition after Saro died. It had drawn us closer.

“Beh, the usual. I’m not going out much. There’s no use taking my sadness on the road,” she said, responding to me in half dialect, half Italian. “But I will be at Mass for the anniversary.”

A monthly Mass during which Saro’s name was read was her way of marking time. I hadn’t figured out how to tell her that we were having a gathering at the house in his honor, a celebration of his life. “Celebration” seemed the wrong word to use with a woman for whom there was no such cultural ritual. I had had many moments like this with her, when I had worried that something I’d say would get lost in translation. It was another way that Saro’s death kept reverberating. He would have known what to say, he knew the cultural ins and outs: what to omit, what to gloss over, what to explain in detail. In his absence, I was sensitive about how my language or misuse of it would create hurt or confusion.

“Zoela and I are having people come over. My family is in town. We will commemorate Saro.” I had pulled up the Italian word for “commemorate” while I was on the phone with her. “And I’m making the fava beans from the garden.”

She knew about the heirloom beans, passed down through generations in Sicily, that we had been growing every year. It made her happy to imagine them growing in foreign soil, feeding us thousands of miles away. She gave me tips on how to keep the beans creamy once pureed. Then we talked about Zoela and school. She asked me if Zoela still asked about Saro. And just before we were about to hang up, she surprised me. “Are you coming to Sicily this summer?”

“Yes, we will be there,” I answered before my brain had time to calculate a response. The reflexiveness of my response surprised me. “I think it will be good for us,” I heard myself say.

I hung up the phone and looked at the pile of fava beans. Some people have heirloom jewelry. I had fava beans.



* * *



Two days later, I put my energy into making an altar-like memory table in the room downstairs where Saro had passed a year earlier. Zoela and I lit candles around the room. I put on his favorite music, laid out his favorite books. We put a rosary around the statue of Buddha. Then I opened the pocket doors and said a prayer. An hour later, one after another, friends and family filled the house. I invited everyone who arrived to pass through the room, if they wanted, and leave a message for Saro. They could do it silently or openly or write it down in a book of remembrance.

Outside, the back yard was teeming with people, all in midconversation about Saro, life, current events, food. The fountain bubbled, the scent of jasmine filled the air. That day the Los Angeles spring sky was bright and giving.

As the afternoon moved toward the softening of twilight, we all went inside. Thirty or so people huddled in the living room around the fireplace, the piano, and the large picture window that looked out onto Saro’s garden.

“Thank you all for being here. Saro would love that we are all gathered. He’s gathered here with us. And I know he’d have some story to tell. But for today, I’d like anyone who wants to to share a story about him.”

Zoela sat on my lap as the room came to life with stories of his friendship, idiosyncrasies, political rants, gentle spirit, hospitality, and food. And of course, people talked of his love. For me, for Zoela. A few of our musician friends picked up his guitars, and an impromptu jam session took hold of the house. Piano, bongos, acoustic and bass guitar filled the air. It was the most alive I had felt in a year.

When everyone left, well after 9:00 p.m., I was tired but still in the afterglow of so much love. As I put away the leftover food, I noticed that some of the fava bean puree remained in the fridge. I thought about my conversation with Nonna days before, the way I had been so worried about what I had said or not said. I had committed myself to seeing her again. There would be another summer. And just like I was still figuring out how to cultivate and prepare the beans on my own, I still had to figure out so much more—in life, in parenting, in the intimacy needed to stay close to his family across culture, geography, and the landscape of grief.