It’s endearing how romantic Saro was.
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He bought Tembi a bike.
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Because he overslept and missed their 11am meetup, he later waited in the rain for Tembi when she overslept for their 1am meetup (after he closed up his restaurant) until she finally came out.
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To make up for oversleeping, Saro invited Tembi and one of her friends to his restaurant, where he made them one of everything on the menu. It was “love at first bite” (33).
“There are many people, maybe even thousands, that you can love. But there are few people… maybe only one or two on the planet, that you can love and live with in peace. The peace part is key. // …In relationships, real partnerships, the love is only as good as the friendship” (43).
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Some things that happened were surprising.
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When Saro moved to LA to be with Tembi, Tembi asked him on a whim if he wanted to get married (so that he could have a permanent address and a green card). He nonchalantly agreed, and they legally got married without telling anyone (except for one of Tembi’s college friends, who was the witness). Only later did they have a big wedding.
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At their big wedding, not only did Saro’s parents refuse to come (since they thought that Saro was “marrying beneath him”), but almost all of Saro’s side of the family didn’t come (out of respect for Saro’s dad, who is the head of the family). What a bummer for what’s supposed to be the greatest day of your life! Only Saro’s aunt and uncle secretly came.
“In creating one family, Saro had lost another” (94).
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When Saro and Tembi ate at an Italian cafe, the owner gave them a homemade cake to deliver to a big-shot LA actor who he assumed they knew (from living in LA). Apparently this actor frequently visits that Italian city since his parents are from there. Tembi had doubts that she could ever get that cake to him, but she was able to get it to the US and have her acting agent leave a message with that actor. That actor personally came to her home to pick up the cake! Saro liked how this experience illustrated Italian determination.
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When Saro’s parents came to the US to visit their dying son, how did they get through airport security with a suitcase full of fresh produce from their farm? Didn’t they know that there would be food in the US?
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When Saro dies, a social worker suggests that Tembi should take a picture of his dead body so if their daughter ever feels like she never got closure when she grows up, she could look at that picture.
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Similar to how Saro “lost” one family by being disowned, kids “lose” one family all the time when they enter foster care.
Saro and Tembi ended up adopting a baby girl named Zoella (since they had trouble getting pregnant, and even if they did get pregnant, who knows if the inclination to cancer could get passed down).
“At the heart of adoption is this love and this loss, all at once. Your daughter will know this feeling one day. It is the realization that she had to say good-bye in order to say hello. That that is how your love as a family came to be” (130).
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It was relieving that Saro’s parents finally accepted Tembi.
When Saro’s parents came to the US to visit Saro (who they knew was dying), they finally saw the life that he built for himself, which they were not able to accomplish when they briefly tried a hand at the American Dream. He wasn’t lonely; rather, he was surrounded by love.
“I read somewhere that a wedding is more than just the joining of two people in unity; it is a symbol of the conjoining of two families. // That had not happened for us at our wedding. It had taken a rare cancer to bring these two very different families together” (208).
When Saro died, his mother told Tembi how she would like to be buried one day (which revealed a vulnerable side of her, admitting her own mortality). A few days later, she insisted on giving Tembi her house (since it would have been Saro’s anyways).
“We had to begin at an ending and make a new beginning” (99)
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Sicily has a much different culture than America.
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Once, while Saro, Tembi, and Zoella were traveling in a rental car, a gas attendant put the wrong kind of fuel in their car. The engine broke down on them and they had to wait for hours to get help (since there’s no AAA and the government can be slow to respond).
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There’s no cheese monger down the street in LA, so Tembi insisted on having Zoella learn how to make her own ricotta cheese in Italy.
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Tembi asked her mother-in-law to teach her some recipes, but her mother-in-law doesn’t measure anything. She has cooked for so long that she just does everything from memory the way that she knows it should be done.
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There aren’t many blacks in Italy. Tembi thinks she is the only one for a 30 mile radius.
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Many people in Italy are very religious. Tembi’s mother-in-law regularly goes to Mass, but Tembi never seems to get into that habit.
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Sicily isn’t prone to accepting outsiders. At the end of the book, there’s a fender-bender one street down from where Tembi’s mother-in-law lives. Tembi, now considered an insider to the family, gets a call to come down to the accident scene to translate between English/Italian. What likely happened was that an Englishman was driving down the street when an elderly Italian man was quickly pulling out of his driving without checking if there was any oncoming traffic (since rarely any cars are out that way). No one was hurt, but the Englishman didn’t want to be responsible for paying for the damage. However, Tembi tries to explain to the Englishman that since that Italian man is the mayor’s cousin (aka, related to someone of high status), he would likely get off without punishment. Outsiders are considered more suspicious anyways. Tembi also didn’t feel inclined to blame the old Italian man since he generously brings Tembi crops every year. Later, Tembi’s mother-in-law asks to make sure that Tembi sided with the Italian man, reinforcing the us-vs-them mentality.
“I wanted to educate him about the fact that he was on an island that has been conquered and ruled by many outsiders throughout history. That the Sicilean instinct isn’t always to make it easier for an outsider” (288).
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Tembi wants to make sure that her daughter doesn’t repeat the same mistakes that she made.
While traveling with Zoella, Tembi catches sight of an Italian man that she had a one-night stand with. He was still in the same city, likely still scouting for young females. Tembi is glad that she was able to meet Saro after him to experience true love.
“I wanted to warn her that men perched on a Vespa are like gelato that looks like pistachio but tastes like anchovies. … // How was this man still there after twenty years? A lifetime had passed for me with a breathtaking love, a marriage, a child, and death. So much sweeping change. Yet here he was, as fixed and constant as the volcano behind him” (169).