If you let things ripen there is no room for sour aftertaste. If you let things come to life on their own, they will stay alive the same way. Juicy and bursting. Along the pathway leading to our families beach, across the backside of summer houses, scraps of tin and rusted metal, there is a pregnant fig tree. Sheltered by mountains humble and far out, this path of sand and mixed dirt is littered with honey dipping figs. Too heavy to be held up by crocheted foliage, they fall among my feet.

Zio takes me along this path to the sea. Each way we stop to collect the fruit that has plopped down, asking to be taken. Here, naturally, I find myself sure that if I let all the unripe fruit around me ripen without a hand, I would be walking amongst paths of honey figs and hazy mountains unbeknownst to my labour.

When Zio and I reached the sea that afternoon I laid out my cream blanket far from the shore line. The children have gathered near the cove where tadpoles are found. Just beyond the cove are the budding youth of Amenta. Too far out and shiny for my eyes to catch hold of, the sun reflects off that spot each afternoon. My body has not felt the water that they swim in, boiled by the sun. Watching them, I bite into my fig. Fingers sticky.

Each journey we took, through the fig tree path, I anticipated seeing

her. Now, as I remove my white dress, I peek through its transparency, searching for her outline.

“Vuoi una pesca?” Do you want a peach? asked Zio, who placed his folding chair just behind me.

“No Zio, grazie”

I can feel him holding his stare. I turn away, still scanning under each open umbrella and golden napping body. I know none of them are her.

Over these warm months, I have become an expert. I can recall the patterns of her bathing suit. Off white, like aged asiago and tangerine pith. Even from far off, I can recognize her curved back and rounded belly walking along the divide of sea and sand. Or, from her unfolding curls floating atop the water that creates the tides as I swim, I am certain. I could run straight into the ocean and know if she had arrived. Today she left me no hints. Today this water runs calm.

“Sei sicuro, ho portato dell’anguria, un panino. Ti andrebbe un pò di succo? Dimmi..” Are you sure, I brought watermelon, a sandwich. Would you like some juice? Tell me… 

I looked back at him and smiled. I was hungry, just not for melon.

“Qui cosa vuoi, amore mio?” What do you want, my love? 

Zio is a smart man. While Zia was alive he was blind to her wisdom. Through their love, I have realized another little truth, about letting things rest. Zia would boil fresh goats milk in the afternoons. Just after the days heat had broken, Zio brought home plastic water bottles full of milk for her to work with. He sat on the rusted orange couch in his denim, shirt open and belly rising. She prepares. In a dented copper pot, two plastic bottles are emptied. She waits. Cutting tomatoes held in her palms, glancing at the white bubbles slowly breaking. Before I know it, we are sitting down to eat. Bread in my mouth, I have forgotten about what rests on the stove.

Each time, with the quiet grace that comes with making cheese, I watched Zia receive curled misshapen buds of cream from the bottom of the pot. The milk has lowered, the fire raised. Again and again. Until the faint smell of crisping milk rises over our ceiling. Ricotta tells me to let myself rest. Underneath my soft milks surface, I too can find treasure cured from a soft fire.

It took Zia leaving for Zio to learn from her ricotta. To know just the right time to peer into the pot. This afternoon on our beach I realized he sensed, even a little part of him, my desire. I felt the disapproval in his stare. What he didn’t realize is that, I too, hate my expertise.

In the night I wake from dreams where I scan her body. Arrive at her depths and masses of skin that are touched by our shared sun. At her bruised knees and long fingers. The dream ends at the top of her where her face is replaced with mine. I wake up in a sweat, moonlight spilling over my dewy pillow. A little part of me wishing to go back to bed, if not to dream again of our bodies melting into each other. Of me becoming her.

“Lá.” There.

I exhale. He found her before I could.