The Sicilian Inheritance

Serafina, Cettina, and the other village women keep Marco alive by transporting him to Palermo for more advanced treatment. He remains there and slowly improves, but Cettina and Serafina’s relationship is irreparably damaged. Rosalia dies and leaves all her belongings to Serafina. Soon, Serafina senses that she is being watched. She opens her door to find broken glass scattered on the stoop, and someone murders a cat and leaves it outside her window. One night, she hears a noise downstairs and grabs the machete she sleeps with to investigate. Gio has returned without notice, though he claims he sent a letter. She feigns excitement and prepares him a meal. Later, while the boys are at school, Gio takes her up the mountain and tells her to sell the land and move to the US with the boys. He feels guilty for leaving them and forcing Serafina to work. When she explains that Marco is ill and she will need to discuss the sale with him, Gio emphasizes that this is an order. Later that night, after they share a meal with the boys, Serafina receives a note from Marco asking her to visit him.

Though he would have accompanied her to Palermo, Gio becomes ill and remains in Caltabellessa while Serafina travels to meet Marco. She expects to find him near death, but he is much improved. Marco and Serafina spend a rapturous day together in Palermo, eating, holding hands, and behaving as if they are married. All day, she dreads telling him her news. They have sex and hold each other. While sharing a bath, Serafina tells Marco of Gio’s return and his demand to sell the land. Marco is hurt but tells Serafina he doesn’t care whether she sells the land. He only makes her promise not to leave him. Knowing she has no choice, Serafina lies to Marco, promising to stay. When she returns to Gio later that night, he drunkenly accuses her of being unfaithful in his absence based on his mother’s suspicions. She refutes his accusation and lies about the land, claiming that Marco never deeded it to her. Soon, Serafina discovers she is pregnant with Marco’s baby. 

Sara attends the city council meeting packed with attendees, including Giusy, her cousin Nino, who claims ownership of the land, the sheik who wants to buy the land, and a reporter hired by Giusy to follow Sara. Nino addresses the council, claiming that his family has owned the land for generations. He attacks Sara’s character, claiming all her documents have been forged. Giusy calms Sara, telling her that Nino wants to protect the land because he works for the Abruzzi family, helping them traffic drugs. Giusy speaks on Sara’s behalf, saying she is there on an errand for a family member and only seeks to reclaim what is rightfully hers. When she mentions Serafina’s name, people groan and mumble. Raguzzo also speaks and takes questions from the crowd. Nicolo, the sculptor, addresses the crowd and vouches for Serafina’s character, citing how she once cared for him in her clinic. He states, “We have demonized a woman who did nothing but keep our village alive” (317). Finally, Sara takes the podium and shares her story of fulfilling Rosie’s wishes. She refutes Nino’s claims and produces the legal documents validated by a lawyer, solidifying her claim on the land.

The council breaks to deliberate, and Giusy encourages Sara that the decision will go their way because the sheik will sway the council to vote in her favor. Sara returns to the hotel, prepares a steak, and calls Sophie. After falling into a deep sleep, Sara is awakened by a knife pointed at her back and Nino telling her to get out of bed. Nino says Giusy let them in and shoves Sara into Luca’s car with the shattered windows.

Gio returns to the US and searches for a home for the family. Serafina keeps her pregnancy secret for as long as possible and even considers terminating it. Once she begins to show, she feels her mother-in-law and others in the village suspect her betrayal. Cettina reports that Marco will return home soon. He writes to Serafina, begging her to move to Palermo, but she ignores his letters. Carmine disparages her name and tells people she is a murderer. Near the end of her pregnancy, someone throws a firebomb through the window of the clinic, burning it to the ground. Serafina goes into labor a month early and nearly dies from blood loss. When she regains consciousness, Cettina is there holding her baby girl. She thought Serafina was dying and came to say goodbye. When the baby opens her eyes, green like Marco’s, there is no denying the secret, and Cettina whispers to Serafina that she loves her, but she is in danger.

Nino and a tall man shove Sara into the car and drive her to the top of the cliff near the cave. Nino plans to throw her off the cliff and make it look like an accident. Suddenly, Giusy appears with a gun. Nino taunts her for double-crossing them. Giusy fires the gun into the air and, while Nino is distracted, slides a knife toward Sara, which she uses to cut the ropes binding her hands. In one swift motion, Sara plunges the knife into Nino and kills him. Giusy disappears just as Fina arrives in a police car. At the police station, they begin to question Sara, but she is in shock and badly injured. She asks for a lawyer, and when the door opens, it’s Carla. When she couldn’t reach Sara, she began to worry and hastily got a flight out to find her. Carla says the police aren’t charging Sara because she acted in self-defense. Carla gets a doctor and takes Sara to collect her belongings at the hotel.

Giusy is waiting for Sara in her room. Sara accuses her of involving her in murder and nearly getting her killed. Giusy reveals that Fina is her daughter, and she did it because, with Nino’s death, she inherited the land. She plans to take over the drug cartel business to provide for Fina and future generations. She promises Sara a cut of the money but makes no apologies for her actions, saying, “Rose wanted you to learn how she lived, how she persevered against all of the odds, and I have given you that” (346). Giusy reveals that Rosie was Serafina and Marco’s daughter and had known about the land for decades but only decided to investigate it later in her life. She gives Sara the diary, which Sara donates to Agata to aid her ongoing research. With pages still missing from the diary, the mystery of Serafina’s death remains.

On the way to their Airbnb, Carla and Sara stop for coffee, and Sara notices a statue in the fountain that looks like her. She finds Nicolo, the sculptor, and he reveals that the sculpture is of Serafina. The image is of an older woman, and Sara doesn’t understand because he met her as a young boy. Nicolo explains that he met her again when she was in the US. Serafina wasn’t killed in Sicily; she faked her death and moved to the US but lived alone. Serafina continued her nursing work in the US, and Nicolo met her at an art gallery. She gave him the deed to the land along with a note and asked him to get it to Rosie. Sara scatters some of Rosie’s ashes into the fountain and then takes Carla to the dragon’s ear, where they scatter the rest. Sicily’s beauty strikes Carla, and she suggests they move there, but Sara wants to return home and rebuild her business and life with Sophie.

Cettina stays with Serafina and nurses her baby while she recovers. She isn’t angry with Serafina for having a baby with Marco and understands their love for one another. It isn’t safe for Serafina to remain in Caltabellessa, so Cettina helps Serafina create a plan to fake her death. Serafina arranges for the children, including Rosalia, to sail for the US without her, telling Gio that she must remain behind to oversee the sale of their house. With help from the village women, they stage Serafina’s brutal murdered, and they claim to bury her body to spare her family the pain of seeing her. In the night, Serafina slips away and sails to Philadelphia. Serafina keeps in touch with Cettina, who keeps her abreast of village life. Eventually, some men return and reclaim their jobs, forcing the women to return to their domestic roles. Ten years later, Cettina tells Marco the truth about Serafina just before he dies.

Serafina graduates from college. She keeps track of her family and learns that Gio never remarried. Santo, the only son to marry, has three children. When he and his wife die in a car accident, Rosalia takes in the children and raises them. Rosalia goes to college and becomes a teacher.

Cettina and Serafina’s letter correspondence eventually turns into phone conversations. Though they plan for Cettina to visit one day, she dies from cancer. Serafina continues her nursing work and thinks of Rosalia often. When Serafina learns she is dying, she travels by train to see Rosie but only sits outside her house, happy to watch her from afar and be at peace with the freedom and opportunity she gave her.