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

Chapter 2 starts with Tembi and Zoela flying to Sicily to scatter and inter Saro’s ashes. Tembi is apprehensive about spending four weeks in a foreign country with Croce, but she is committed to bringing Saro’s remains home, where Giuseppe, dead for three years, also lies. Franca and her husband pick Tembi and Zoela up at the airport and drive them to Aliminusa, where local women line Croce’s street. After embracing Tembi and Zoela, Croce asks for Saro’s ashes, which she places on the dining table alongside a candle and a small altar. Mourners arrive to offer their condolences, but Croce does not greet them, instead quietly saying the rosary. The arrival of the local priest marks the start of the official lament. Although Tembi cries with the wailing mourners, she knows that the ritual is not for her, but for Saro’s family. The next morning, Zoela asks to see Saro’s ashes, prompting Tembi to open her locket rather than the box on Croce’s table. Tembi and Croce take the box to church for Mass, then drive to the cemetery for a small service. A groundskeeper places Saro’s ashes in a tomb and seals it with fresh cement.