Our dear Mirio passed away Monday night. The funeral was Wednesday in the tiny church of S. Carlo here in Capriglia. Jonathan and I sat on the back row between Nonno and Ugo.

And so now Nonno is alone. The church was full up to standing room only and many people also waited outside and Nonno was kissed by many, many people whose names I don't know and who are not part of my little world. And then afterwards, we went to the pub to raise a glass to Mirio and Lucia sat next to Nonno and talked with him about many things other than death. Guglielmo was there and Geppolino and Almo, Valerio, Claudio, Ilario, and others. But that doesn't change anything. When you've had a brother for 88 years and you've been so close through so much, like Nonno and Mirio had been, to lose that brother is now to be always a little bit alone. 

There were three years difference in age between Nonno and Mirio -- just like there are between Aiden and Tris. And for all of the many mistakes that I have made as a parent, one thing I got right was giving them each other and their friendship, their brotherhood.

And so at the end of the funeral, as the flower-covered casket that held Mirio's body came back down the aisle of the church to go back into the hearse and then off to the crematorium, Nonno -- who had even cracked a joke or two before the service started and who had whispered to me that he rated the preist's eulogy only "so-so" -- reached out as the casket passed him and touched it with the final brief caress of a big brother to the younger brother he had always tried to take care of -- the younger brother who had known him longer than any other person in the world.

 And so for all the love that I am so glad that my sons have for each other, that one moment of Nonno reaching out to gently touch the final remains of his brother and then to be without him from then on was a picture of the future that my sons are fated to have. Someday, one of them will lose the other.

And I have a brother that I love, too. Someday one of us will be left without anyone else in the world who remembers our childhood. Our future is not infinite and so we pay a steep price for love.

Renata has returned. She came back from Poland on Monday and we saw her Tuesday when we all sat together in mourning and then again at the funeral and after it. It was a subdued reunion, under the circumstances, but we are happy to have her back again, especially Nonno, who needs her now.

Without Mirio to play, the boys at the pub are having a hard time consistently finding four players for cards. Almo, who was trained as a sculptor by Mirio, plays -- as he always did. He went down to town and bought the newspaper for Nonno. It had a story about Mirio's passing in it and Almo brought it back for Nonno and found the right page for him, the one with the story, and then I saw that Almo's eyes had gotten misty and he drank his glass of wine with great attention for a while.

 

Thursday night, the Italian National Soccer Team played against Spain in the European Cup. I got a series of four texts from Daniele that morning:

"Catherina buongiorno"

"This evening we are making a spaghettata to watch the game."

"All together"

"If you would like to join us, we are happy."

(I am translating this to the best of my limited ability from Italian. "Spaghettata" is beyond the scope of Google Translate, but is also pretty self-explanatory.)

It is nice to be part of "all of us together."

It was a lovely night out on the terrace of the pub and Daniele is a genius with sauces, especially when he is just cooking for friends and lets his imagination go. He made a light glaze with lobster and parsley that looked like nothing on the plate, but exploded with a dozen layers of flavor in our mouths.

Italy lost the game 0-1 because one of the Italian players accidentally kicked the ball into our own goal. I felt just terrible for the guy. I mean, I have fucked up plenty in my life (and in far more serious situations), but never with an entire nation watching me.

Semina (whose real name is Francesco and who was wearing a t-shirt that said "This is business -- nothing personal" and had a picture of Marlon Brando on it) said that if the Spaniards were polite, they would follow suit and kick a ball into their own net. But they didn't and so now we know.

We all drank beer because Daniele told us we should when watching soccer and because the beer was free. But it amazes me that anyone in Italy drinks beer voluntarily when the beer is so bad and the wine is so good. But the price was right.

I think about how much my dad would have loved all this -- sitting all morning in the sun at the beach and reading while little kids dig holes in the sand with their tiny spades and then going in the evening to sit on the terrace of the pub and have a glass of wine with the old men and talk about the day's events.

We are only a few weeks away from Nonno's 91st birthday, but he doesn't think he will have a party this year, unlike last year's giant blowout for his 90th. It would be too sad with Mirio still so sick. I haven't seen Mirio in many weeks now and my heart sinks whenever I hear the ambulance siren coming up the hill from town below. And Renata is still not back from Poland.

Other than that, we have been very homebound. Jonathan threw out his back on Tuesday and, despite taking some pills from the doctor, is walking around all hunched over and groaning. And on Monday, I managed to break my right baby toe at the beach by gracefully slamming into the only hard object (the edge of a walkway) on the entire expanse of soft sand and cool blue water. So I hobble around with my foot all wrapped up like I've begun to explore a future in mummification.

In spite of all this, we are happy. The baby olives and baby grapes are doing well, the Lemon Bar has decorated itself with actual lemons lately, the beach club is fully open as are the hydrangeas, we have nowhere particular to go.

There was an essay on Salon.com yesterday about the joys of Appalachian cooking, which is apparently the newest foodie rage in the US. It sounds lovely -- seasonal, local, sustainable, all natural, communal. It also sounds exactly like what we do here -- what every food culture, in fact, always did until about a hundred years ago when the advent of refrigeration changed the world's eating habits. The part about pulling up a chair and wiling away the hours in conversation with your neighbors could describe every night of the week down at the pub. And the part about the keen respect for every part of an animal? Fabulous! Until you find yourself facing a boiled chicken head on a plate, that is...

Renata has been gone for many weeks now. Her mother passed away unexpectedly and she has gone to Poland to be with her elderly and sick father. Her husband, Stefano, is here and we see him driving their car, but no one knows when or if she is ever coming back. It is hard to be far away from family that you love, especially when they need you.

Alice says that Renata no longer answers anyone's phone calls -- except for Nonno's. This makes sense. During all those long winter evenings when no one was in the pub except for us and the Beasts and Renata, she and Nonno had an ongoing battle -- Renata firing prosecco corks at Nonno whenever she opened a bottle and Nonno threatening to smack her with his cane. Now he is the only one who can reach her.

So last week, I asked Nonno when Renata is coming back. "Soon," he said. "Someday soon -- in a few days." I don't know if that is what Renata told Nonno so he wouldn't feel bad or what Nonno is telling me so I won't. She has been gone a long time. Nonno's 91st birthday will happen in July andI hope she will be back for that.

Last night Jonathan and I sat between Nonno and Geppollino at the tavolo di marmo during that golden late afternoon hour while Federica is setting the tables for all the summer diners who come now that the season has started and Daniele goes back and forth to the kitchen and tries to round up enough players for a game of cards and Alice tells Almo where to put the tables for the night and takes reservations on the phone. Claudio comes in and then leaves and then comes back bringing his dog, Lila. Guglielmo is there and Valerio and Ugo shows up still sporting his new moustache that Renata did not like, but I do. Federica tells us that her son has passed his test for his driver's license. Her face lights up when she talks about him.

A recent addition to the circle of beasts, Matteo, was there, talking about eating avocados on toast. Nonno pretended to think that he was talking about an "avvocato" (the Italian word for "lawyer") and said that he would not like to eat a lawyer on toast because it would be too expensive. 

Then Matteo told us all that he had refused to do his national military service. 

"You have to," Nonno told him. "If you don't, they come and get you and put you in jail."

But Matteo insisted that he had not done his.

"I didn't do it," I said. Geppollino thought that was pretty funny.

This morning, I went down to the beach for a while, but now it has clouded up and the air is heavy and thick with the aroma of jasmine. Maybe it will rain.

 

Summer has burst open. Today at the fruit and veg store, the first figs were there and the first wild blueberries. We also bought cherries and peaches and apricots. The first borlotti of the season were there, so we bought some of those, too, as well as asparagus, peppers, leeks, zucchini, cabbage and lettuce. All of this cost us about thirty dollars.

The hydrangeas at home have turned delicate pinks and purples and blues. And the main street street in town, Via Mazzini, has been decorated for summer with hanging umbrellas along the whole two block stretch of it. I sent a picture of it to my brother and he texted back: "Nobody prepares for rain like the Italians. By which, of course, I mean, 'so beautifully, so poetically, in such a visually stunning way.'"

Having waited a full month, we went yesterday to check on Jonathan's driver's license, as we had been directed to do. They told us to come back in July. The little grapes on our vines are starting to plump up and are now the size of peas. Our olives grove is filled with bright red poppies in the tall grass.

 

Just past our beach club is a little smoothie bar set in a grove of beachside trees and/or Wonderland. It is called either the Lemon Bar or the Lola Juice Bar -- nothing in this place is certain.

I have never been someone who writes sitting in cafes, but I have never been in a cafe under the trees with crystal chandeliers before. So I am giving it a go.

 Renata is still in Poland with her father so they are short-handed down at the pub. The last time we were in there, Alice offered me a job waiting tables. I said no, but this is the second time in my life that I have been offered a job at a bar without applying for it just because I am around so much. The last time, I got "The Drunken Spelunker's Guide to Plato" out of it. Who knows what great drunken literature would have come from working at the pub here in lovely Capriglia-by-the-Sea, but one thing is certain: I need to widen the circle of places where I hang out. (Jonathan was -- half-humorously -- offered a job by our cheese man in the Thursday market. This says something about our differences.)

I have finished my tarot deck and we are now trying to figure out a way to get it printed.

It turns out that Mimmo is not the person who killed the snakes. "I pick them up by their tails and throw them in the woods," he said. "They hiss at me when I do it." Understandable given the circumstances. Who wouldn't?

 Jonathan found a scorpion by the door to the laundry room last night. Ah, summer!

I went this afternoon down to the beach and parked at the ice cream place and walked all the way from there down to our beach club and back. These are some of the pictures that I took along the way. I took them because some day all of this will be changed or gone and I will want to remember how it was.