A Man In Love With His Wife.

Sicily, near Palermo. 1972

We met Albert and Rosalia fifty years ago, and our few minutes of friendship shine in my memory. Tom and I were on the honeymoon of a lifetime, living in a Volkswagen van and traveling from one continent to another, from one country to another. Twenty-four hours before, we had endured a long and rough crossing from Tunisia to Palermo. Exhausted, we stumbled off the ship and stood in line for Italian customs. Once in our van, we located a local grocery to buy supplies and a gas station for fuel, chores that were always an exhausting adventure in each new country.

It was already late afternoon when we drove out into the countryside to search for a place to park the van and sleep. Bone-weary, we took the first farm road we could find and settled on a quiet loop surrounded by fields. After a quick meal, we collapsed on our bed as daylight faded into dusk. We did not stir until the following morning.

We awoke to bright April sunshine edging through the curtains. The camping spot we had found in our sleep-deprived stupor was near a bridge over an irrigation ditch. Fields and farmland stretched out on both sides. From our bed, I reached across to our two-burner stove, and like every morning, I put the kettle on to boil. Tom opened the van door to let the spring sunshine bathe us in its warm glow. It was the glorious kind of morning that made the stress of constant travel worthwhile.

Before the water for my tea and Tom’s coffee came to a boil, he heard the chug of a car pull up next to us. A dusty Volkswagen bug had stopped near the bridge, and three men emerged. Two walked to the bridge and knelt to check a gauge that hung down into the flowing water. The third man was blond and stocky, a picture-perfect Sicilian. I hoped he had not come to chase us away from this idyllic spot which was certainly private property.

The man came to our open door. “Hello,” he said. “American?”

Tom stepped down from the van. “Yes, Americans. California.” We found almost everyone we met, even country people, knew of California, home to Disneyland and Hollywood.

“La mia tera. La mia Fattoria.” The man swung his arm in an arc toward the fields bordering the road and the structures in the distance. “Ben venuto.”

Tom smiled and offered his hand. The farmer grasped it firmly in both of his and pumped it up and down slowly. “Sorry. No Italiano,” Tom said. “Español?” He pointed to me. “Mi mujer, Katie . . . esposa.” He touched the wedding ring on his finger, then put his hand on his chest. “Tomas,” he said.

The young farmer touched his chest with the flat of his palm. “Alberto.” It was obvious we had no language in common, but Alberto’s broad smile spoke of our welcome. He peered into the van, obviously curious. “Per favore. È la tua casa?

I understood the word “casa” and invited him inside with a gesture. Alberto stepped into our microbus and looked around, his eyes wide. I pointed out our built-in amenities—a stove, a tiny refrigerator, a sink with pressure-pumped water, our wide, foldable bed, and the small closet. I hoped that my limited Spanish would sound close enough to the Italian that he spoke. “Estufa. Lavabo. Agua. Bed for dormir. Closet . . . para ropa.”

Alberto looked around and nodded his head in appreciation of each item. When he had seen everything, he stepped out of the small space. “Grazie,” he said. He looked back and forth between Tom and me. I caught his glance at my flat stomach. “No Bambini?” Alberto asked. We understood this and would soon learn it was one of the first questions most Italians asked.

Tom laughed and shook his head. “No Bambini.” He pointed again to his gold wedding band. “Solo ocho meses.” He held up eight fingers to show the number of months we had been married.

The farmer smiled and pointed to himself. “Si, a me, otto mesi.” He also held up eight fingers and pointed to the ring on his left hand. “La mia donna. Con il bambino . . . presto!” His face beamed with pride for his impending fatherhood.

I spread my arms to encompass our tiny home. “Very pequeño, too small . . . para un bambino,” I said. Alberto seemed to understand my mash-up of English and Spanish because he nodded again and laughed.

His compatriots finished checking the gauges and the irrigation ditch and came over to the van. They stood by the door, and Alberto spoke to them in lilting Italian. They smiled in unison and stretched out their hands in greeting. “Bye. Bye,” Alberto said, and they all climbed into their VW bug and rumbled off down the dirt road.

I sighed in relief. We had not been told to leave. Our first glorious morning in Sicily stretched ahead.

With our bed folded away, Tom and I sat at our tiny table, sipping from steaming mugs, enjoying the earthy smell of farmland and the volcanic slopes of Mount Etna in the distance. We were still talking dreamily of our plans to see the nearby ancient Greek ruins when Alberto returned. This time his companion was a pretty, young woman whose pregnant belly filled her loose dress. Our friend put his arm around her waist and grinned. “Rosalia,” he said. He tenderly touched her swollen abdomen and added, “Bambino.”

Rosalia smiled shyly and offered us a bottle of milk with one hand, four eggs cradled in the other. Her husband spoke for her. “Per te. Un regalo.” He made the hand gestures of milking a cow, pulling on invisible cow teats, then grinned, and pointed to the eggs. “Uova. Cluck. Cluck. Polli?”

“Si. Grazie.” Tom assured him we understood. “Pollo en Espanol. Chicken in English.”

Alberto whispered in his wife’s ear. She went back to the car and returned with a photo album cradled in her arms. She smiled shyly and held it out for me to take. “Foto del matrimonio,” Alberto said.

Tom and I both understood that the couple wanted to share these mementos of their wedding with us. We perched together on the threshold of the van and looked through the photos—a beautiful Rosalia with flowers in her hair and Alberto in a black suit beside her, the two of them holding hands on the church steps, and several shots of family and friends seated at a long table under a grape arbor. The album continued with countless pictures of guests dancing or raising glasses of wine in a toast. The pictures brought back memories of our own garden celebration, and Tom squeezed my hand as we turned the pages.

When we had finished looking at all the photos, I handed the book back to Rosalia with both hands as if it were a sacred offering. I treasured her willingness to share as much as she treasured the album itself. “Thank you,” I said, “Grazie.”

Alberto and Rosalia smiled, and their eyes glistened with love and hope. “Arrivederci. Andare con Dio,” Alberto said. Rosalia only nodded. In her shyness, she had not said a single word. Alberto waved his hand gaily as he drove away, and Rosalia’s glowing smile shone through her window. Tom and I watched the little car rumble down the road, a swirl of dust following as it turned toward their home, a place we knew had a cow, chickens, and a grape arbor—a place filled with love.

I have thought of Alberto and Rosalia often over the years, and I wonder how their marriage fared. Did this Sicilian man love his wife with continuing devotion, or did his eye begin to wander to younger women? Did Rosalia remain the silent acquiescent partner we saw, or did she become a domineering and opinionated woman, directing family matters with a firm hand? I will never know what path their marriage took, but I’m sure that however their relationship evolved, they are still together. For Alberto and Rosalia, deep in the Sicilian ethic of lasting marriage, divorce would not have been an option.

My marriage, so happy and filled with hope during that traveling honeymoon, ended after thirty-one years. Tom and I did have bambinos, a daughter and a son, a dream of family we fulfilled together. But after both good and not-so-good years, we divorced when we realized that we were at our best as a couple only when traveling. As it turned out, we were not so well suited when it came to the day-to-day give-and-take of homebound life with children. Still, Tom and I have remained friends, and we often remember together the joys of that long-ago honeymoon trip.

When I think of our Italian friends, I remember how Alberto radiated with love for his wife, for their coming bambino, for his farm, and for the country life they shared. I hope he and Rosalia never longed for anything else. I like to close my eyes and picture them today as one of those long-married couples of romantic lore—an elderly man who still adores his wife and a doting wife who defers to her husband and offers hospitality to strangers.

In my imagination, they have recently celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary with a party under the grape arbor. Perhaps Rosalia has made another picture album. There will be photos of Alberto seated in the shade, his hands clasped on the curve of his cane, and another with Rosalia seated next to him, their shoulders touching and their hands clasped together. Their faces glow with smiles that break apart the wrinkles of age. There will be pictures of the two of them surrounded by their adult children, certainly more than one, all in their mid-to-late 40s. In other photos, their grandchildren, teens and adults in their twenties, fiddle with their cell phones or raise glasses of wine. Most likely, there will be great-grandchildren pictured too, young ones kicking soccer balls or hanging on their grandpa’s knee.

How I envy the dreams those two probably fulfilled! They were our friends for only a moment, but they showed me a glimpse of a simple life overflowing with love and grandchildren—something Tom and I hoped to find, but our story turned out differently.

. . .

A Man In Love With His Wife was inspired by a section of my memoir, Wherever the Road Leads, published in 2020. Originally shorter, the memory has been expanded with details and reflection. If you enjoyed A Man In Love With His Wife, you might also enjoy reading the full memoir.

https://www.amazon.com/Wherever-Road-Leads-Memoir-Travel-ebook/dp