She Spoke Ancient Sicilian Dialect to His Grandmother—Mafia Boss Froze—'Where Did You Learn This'

She Spoke Ancient Sicilian Dialect to His Grandmother—Mafia Boss Froze—'Where Did You Learn This'

The late afternoon sun filters through the windows of Sacred Heart Hospice, painting everything in shades of amber and gold. My shoes squeak softly against the linoleum as I push the medication cart down the corridor, checking my watch for the third time in as many minutes. Four thirty. Thirty minutes until my shift ends, and I can finally go home, peel off these scrubs, and collapse into bed.
Except I won't be going home. Not really. Home implies somewhere permanent, somewhere safe. What I have is a studio apartment in the Bronx with thin walls and a landlord who doesn't fix the heat. What I have is temporary, precarious—like everything else in my life since I left Sicily three years ago.
"Nurse Aria?" Mrs. Chen's voice pulls me from my thoughts. She's standing in the doorway of Room 304, her expression worried. "The new patient in 312—the elderly woman—she's very agitated. Won't let anyone near her. Keeps speaking in a language none of us understand."
I nod, already moving toward the room. This isn't uncommon. Elderly patients, especially those with dementia or in the final stages of illness, often revert to their native languages. We have translators on call, but they take time to arrive, and sometimes a gentle presence is all that's needed.
The woman in Room 312 is tiny, bird-like, propped up against pillows that seem to swallow her whole. Her skin is papery and translucent, her white hair carefully arranged despite her obvious distress. But it's her eyes that catch me—dark, sharp, still fierce despite the frailty of her body. She's muttering continuously, her gnarled hands plucking at the blanket.
I approach slowly, keeping my movements gentle and unthreatening. "Buongiorno, signora," I say softly in Italian, hoping it might calm her.
Her eyes snap to me, and the muttering stops. For a moment, she just stares, assessing. Then she speaks, and my blood runs cold—not with fear, but with recognition.
She's speaking ancient Sicilian dialect. Not the modern Italian-influenced version most people know, but the old tongue, the one my grandmother used to speak, the one that carries echoes of Greek and Arabic and Norman French, the language of shepherds and fishermen, of mountain villages so remote they might as well exist outside of time.
"Iu sugnu stanca," she whispers, her voice cracking. "Vogghiu turnari a casa. Unni è u me figghiu?"
I'm tired. I want to go home. Where is my son?
The words unlock something in me I've kept carefully buried for three years. Memories of my grandmother's kitchen, of summer evenings on the terrace overlooking the valley, of a language I haven't spoken since the night I fled with nothing but a suitcase and my grandmother's old recipe book.