A Funeral and a Fight
In 2001, Pietro died at eighty-one. His funeral filled St. Alphonsus, the pews packed with Italians, Mexicans, Anglos, and farmworkers alike.
At the wake, the family gathered under the sycamores. Wine flowed, but the mood was heavy.
Dominic raised a glass. “To Nonno Pietro—an American success story.”
Sofia bristled. “He wasn’t just that. He was an immigrant. He never stopped being one. He never forgot what it felt like to be hated.”
Dominic smirked. “He also never forgot discipline. Work. Respect. Things those protestors with their signs don’t understand.”
Sofia snapped. “He fed those protestors! He marched with the farmworkers when you hid behind your fence!”
Voices rose, old wounds opening. Finally, Lucia, frail but fierce, struck the table with her cane. “Enough! You disgrace him with this fighting. Pietro lived for vines, for roots, for family. If you tear that apart, you bury him twice.”
The table fell into silence, the vines whispering in the distance.
The Younger Eyes
By the 2000s, a new generation of Sielis filled the rows: Sofia’s children, teenagers with mixed features and American slang. They spoke little Italian, but they asked questions.
“Mom,” her daughter Elena asked one night, “is it true they called you people dagos?”
Sofia nodded slowly. “Yes. It was a word of hate.”
“Then why do Uncle Dominic and Uncle Mike call Mexicans names?”
Sofia’s throat tightened. “Because they forgot. Because they chose comfort over memory. But you—” she touched her daughter’s cheek—“you don’t have to forget.”
The Internet Arrives
The year was 1999, and the kitchen smelled of espresso and simmering tomato sauce — the same as it always had. But on the table, next to the breadbasket, lay something new: a glossy brochure from the local phone company.
On the cover was a stock photo of a family smiling at a computer, the words “Get Connected: The World Wide Web Awaits You!” splashed across in bright letters.
Michael picked it up, squinting through his bifocals. “World Wide… Web? What the hell is this, spiders?”
Dominic leaned over his shoulder, brow furrowed. “Looks like a scam to me. Ain’t no such thing as a world wide anything. Whole world in a box? Come on.”
Sofia, in her twenties then, rolled her eyes. “It’s not spiders, Uncle Mike. It’s the internet. Everyone’s talking about it. You can send mail instantly, look up anything you want, even shop. You need this if you’re gonna keep the vineyard in business.”
Michael barked a laugh. “Shop? On a computer? What do you do, shove your credit card into the screen?”
The younger cousins chuckled, but Dominic stayed stone-faced. “We’ve been selling wine just fine without no internet. Folks call, they order, they show up. Simple. Why complicate it?”
Sofia pressed. “Because that’s not how people are doing business anymore! Restaurants are making websites, families are buying online. You could ship Sieli wine across the whole country. You could tell our story to the world.”
From the far end of the table, old Aunt Rosa spoke up, her voice quavering with age. “Email, they call it. I seen it on the news. But tell me this — how can you put a letter in a wire? Doesn’t make sense.”
Michael grunted, waving the brochure. “That’s what I’m sayin’. Letters need paper. Stamps. A wire’s for electricity, not words.”
Sofia shook her head, exasperated. “It’s not wires, it’s— look, it doesn’t matter how. Just know it works. Everybody’s getting online. Even churches are making websites now.”
Dominic squinted. “Web… site? What’s a site? Like the vineyard? You plant grapes on this… web?”
The room erupted in laughter, but Sofia wasn’t done. She leaned forward, fire in her eyes. “I’m serious. You want the Sieli name to survive the next generation? You need to be out there. The internet is the future.”
Michael tapped his chest. “No. We’re the future. Our vines, our hands, our name. No machine is gonna replace that.”
“Maybe not replace it,” Sofia shot back, “but it’s gonna change it. Whether you like it or not.”
For a long moment, no one spoke. The kitchen hummed with the sound of the refrigerator, the clink of cutlery. Then Dominic reached for the brochure again, staring at the smiling faces on the cover.
“What’s an email, anyway?” he muttered. “You lick it? Stamp it? How does it get there?”
Sofia laughed so hard she nearly spilled her wine. “No, Uncle Dom. You just… type it. You hit send, and it’s there in seconds. Faster than the mailman. Faster than a phone call, even.”
Michael snorted. “Faster don’t always mean better. Sometimes faster just means mistakes quicker.”
Still, when the first clunky desktop computer arrived at the vineyard office a few months later — beige tower, dial-up modem, the screech of connection filling the room — even Michael leaned in close, watching the screen as if it were alive.
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And when Sofia set up their very first email account — SieliVineyard@aol.com — and sent a message to herself just to show them how it worked, Michael’s eyes widened despite himself.
“Well I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “The letter’s really in there. Guess the world’s changin’ faster than we are.”
Dominic crossed his arms. “Yeah, well… we’ll see if the internet can prune a vine.”
The room erupted again, laughter mixing with disbelief. But deep down, even the stubborn old men knew Sofia was right: the future had arrived, whether they were ready or not.
Reality and Other Fictions
By the late 1990s, the world had discovered a new kind of theater—one where ordinary people played themselves. Cameras replaced confessionals, and drama no longer needed scripts. It was only a matter of time before even the vineyard caught Hollywood’s eye.
A producer from Los Angeles arrived one June afternoon in a white SUV, hair slicked, smile gleaming, business card embossed. He toured the rows, tasted the wine, and declared, “This place is pure Americana with a twist of Tuscany. You’ve got multi-generational drama, family politics, old-world charm. It’s perfect for reality TV.”
Sofia, then in her early thirties, leaned forward in her chair, half-flattered, half-curious. “You mean like The Osbournes but with better lighting?”
“Exactly,” the producer said. “We’ll show the world what it’s really like to run a family vineyard. You’ll inspire people—heritage, legacy, passion. And if we capture a little conflict along the way,” he added, grinning, “well, that’s television.”
Michael groaned. “Television used to mean somethin’. Now it’s people yellin’ about nothing for half an hour.” He pointed his cigar toward the man. “You think we’re gonna air our dirty laundry for strangers to gawk at? Forget it.”
Sofia countered gently, “It’s not about laundry, Uncle Mike. It’s about visibility. People would see who we really are—an immigrant family that worked for everything it has.”
“Worked,” Dominic muttered. “Not performed.”
In the end, the argument stretched across three family dinners, two bottles of Zinfandel, and one phone call from the network promising “creative control.” Against Michael’s protests, Sofia signed the contract—one season, six episodes, titled Roots & Vines: The Sieli Legacy.
When filming began, the vineyard became a stage. Camera crews followed them through the rows, mics clipped to their collars. A young producer with gelled hair whispered questions just out of frame: “How does it feel knowing this land’s been in your family for 150 years?” “Do old wounds still linger?”
Michael learned quickly to spot the red recording light and go silent whenever it blinked. Dominic, after a week, refused to wear the mic at all. “Feels like I’m confessin’ to a robot,” he said.
But Sofia thrived under the attention. She walked the property with the confidence of a CEO, narrating the harvest, explaining fermentation, even giving a tearful toast about legacy and love that made it into the season finale. For a brief, flickering moment, they were local celebrities. Tourists came asking for autographs and selfies beside the vines.
Then the reviews came.
“The Sielis,” one critic wrote, “are too normal for prime time. Too real to be Reality.” The show was canceled after one season, replaced by a dating series filmed in Beverly Hills.
When the cameras packed up and left, Michael stood by the gate and watched the last van drive off. “Good riddance,” he said. “Now maybe the grapes’ll get some peace.”
Sofia smiled wistfully. “You have to admit, Uncle Mike—we looked good in high definition.”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “Maybe. But real life don’t need a camera to prove it’s real.”
The vines rustled in agreement. The only lens that mattered, it seemed, was the one that faced the soil.
September 11th
When the towers fell in 2001, the country hardened. Flags flew from every porch. New enemies were named. Borders were tightened.
At another family table, Dominic declared, “Now do you see? We must protect ourselves. Close the borders. Build walls.”
Michael nodded sharply. “And keep them out—every last one of them. These Muslim nations breed hate. We can’t allow them here. America is a Judeo-Christian nation.”
Sofia’s voice trembled with fury. “Do you even hear yourselves? The very people who once shouted ‘Christian nation’ are the same ones who spat at us, called us papists, said Catholics didn’t belong. Do you not remember how they tried to bar our grandparents from entering this country at all?”
Michael bristled, but Dominic cut in, his jaw tight. “That was then. This is now. Those men on those planes were Muslims. You can’t change that.”
“But you’re blaming millions for the crimes of a few,” Sofia shot back. “You want to use fear to exile whole peoples, whole faiths. That’s not safety—that’s the same prejudice Nonno Pietro fought against.”
The table grew heavy with silence. At last, Michael leaned forward. “I’ll tell you what I do know. I know what I saw on the TV. I know the ashes that covered New York. And I know this: I will never allow that to happen again, not while I live.”
For once, Dominic hesitated. He poured wine, took a long drink, and then added quietly: “I agreed with Afghanistan. We had to go after Al Qaeda. They hit us first.”
Michael nodded, his voice low. “But then Bush turned to Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction? Hussein? That smelled different. Even I didn’t buy it.”
Sofia leaned forward, her eyes searching theirs. “So you can see it. You can see how fear can be twisted into wars that never end. Fear that leads us to strike at the wrong targets.”
Lucia, nearing ninety, raised her shaky hand. Her voice, though faint, carried through the tension. “I am old. I have seen mobs, hunger, war. And I will tell you this—fear is the cheapest wine. It sours the soul. Do not drink it.”
The younger cousins looked between them, uncertain. Some nodded with Dominic and Michael, others with Sofia. The vineyard stood in the middle, its roots deep, its branches pulling in opposite directions.
Dot-Com Vines
By 2002, the beige box in the vineyard office had become as much a part of the family as the crucifix on the wall. It hummed and whirred, and whenever someone tried to go online, the modem screeched like a demon being exorcised.
Michael hated it. “Sounds like the damn thing’s choking to death every time you turn it on.”
Sofia rolled her eyes. “That’s the dial-up, Uncle Mike. It’s normal. You’ll get used to it.”
Dominic muttered from the corner. “I’ll never get used to it. A machine shouldn’t sound like it’s screaming just to do its job.”
But Sofia pressed on. She had convinced them to register a domain — SieliVineyard.com — and even cobbled together a basic website through a hosting service.
One evening, she sat the family down around the monitor. “Okay, look — this is our website. See? People can read our history, see pictures of the vineyard, even send us messages right here.”
The screen loaded slowly, line by line, until an image of the vineyard appeared, pixelated and a little crooked.
Michael squinted. “That’s supposed to be our land? Looks like a quilt somebody spilled wine on.”
Dominic grumbled. “And what’s this ‘Contact Us’ button? Anybody can just write us a letter now? Strangers? Crooks? No thank you.”
Sofia laughed. “That’s the whole point, Uncle Dom. People want to connect. That’s how you sell wine. You let them know who you are.”
He shook his head. “I already know who I am. If they want my wine, they can drive down Highway 41 and buy it themselves.”
But then came the emails. The very first one was from a woman in New York, who had stumbled across their website.
“I saw your family’s story online,” Sofia read aloud. “I’d love to order a case of your zinfandel for my father’s birthday.”
Michael blinked. “From New York? She found us on this… internet thing?”
Sofia grinned. “Exactly. That’s the power of the web.”
Dominic muttered, “Or it’s a trick. How do we even know she’s real? Could be a scam.”
A few weeks later, another email came in: “Dear Sieli Vineyards, I am a Nigerian prince in need of your assistance…”
Michael threw his hands in the air. “See! I told you! Crooks! They want to steal the vineyard right through the wires!”
Sofia nearly spit out her coffee laughing. “That’s spam, Uncle Mike. Everyone gets those. You just delete them.”
“Spam?” Dominic frowned. “I thought that was meat in a can.”
Despite their stubbornness, the website stayed. Orders trickled in, mostly locals at first, then a few from out of state. Sofia set up a mailing list, though Michael still called it “the chain letter.”
By 2005, one of the cousins had made a MySpace page for the vineyard. “Look,” Sofia said proudly, “we’ve got friends online now.”
Michael frowned at the blinking graphics and loud background music. “Friends? Those ain’t friends. Those are strangers staring at us through a keyhole.”
Dominic agreed. “If they want to be friends, let ’em come have a glass of wine on the porch. That’s friendship. Not this nonsense.”
But slowly, begrudgingly, they began to see the value. People from across the country started writing, sharing stories of their own immigrant grandparents, their own vineyards, their own struggles. The internet, strange and noisy as it was, carried echoes of the same thing that bound the Sielis to their land: connection, across distance and time.
Michael still refused to type an email himself — he dictated them to Sofia, pacing the room like a general giving orders. Dominic called every password “a goddamn secret handshake.” But the vineyard had taken its first steps into the digital age, and there was no turning back.
“Just a Fad”
By 2009, the vineyard office had changed. The old corkboard of invoices and handwritten notes was now half-covered by a glowing monitor. The beige tower had been replaced with a sleeker computer, and a little wireless router sat blinking on the desk like some alien heartbeat.
Sofia, now in her thirties, tapped at the keys with practiced ease. “Okay,” she said, excitement in her voice. “The next step is Facebook.”
Michael leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, eyes narrowed with suspicion. His hair had gone silver at the temples, but his bark was still sharp. “Facebook. What the hell is that supposed to be? Some kind of yearbook for strangers?”
Dominic grunted from the corner, arms folded tight. “I don’t like it. Why should people we don’t know be lookin’ at our vineyard, our family pictures? Feels wrong. Feels… exposed.”
Sofia sighed. “It’s not like that. Everyone’s doing it now — businesses, churches, even schools. You post pictures, updates, events. People like your page, they follow you, they order wine because they feel connected to us.”
Michael barked a laugh. “Like our page? Who cares if strangers ‘like’ us? Either you drink the wine or you don’t. This ain’t about being liked. It’s about surviving. And let me tell you — this internet thing? It’s a fad. Like disco. Like Beanie Babies. In ten years, nobody will even remember it.”
Sofia looked at him like he had three heads. “Uncle Mike, people are making their whole lives online now. News, shopping, politics — all of it. This isn’t going away. If you’re not on Facebook, you don’t exist to half the world.”
Dominic snorted. “Good. Let’s not exist, then. We did fine before all this. Vines don’t need computers. Grapes don’t ripen faster because someone clicked a button.”
But Sofia was ready. She pulled up a photo of the vineyard at sunset — golden light across the rows, the American flag rippling on its pole. She typed a caption: “Our family has been growing grapes in Fresno County since the 1850s. We’re proud to share our story with the world. Welcome to Sieli Vineyards.”
She clicked “Post.”
Michael watched the screen like it might explode. “And now what?”
Sofia pointed. “Now people can see this. Anywhere. Italy, New York, San Francisco. In a few hours, someone you’ve never met could be reading about your grandfather Antonio.”
Dominic leaned forward, scowling. “And why would I want some stranger in Italy poking around our business?”
Michael muttered, “It’s ridiculous. The internet’s a toy for kids, not for men who work. Give it a few years, it’ll collapse. Just watch. All this ‘world wide whatever’ will blow away like smoke.”
But then, within minutes, the page pinged with its first “like.” A young couple from Los Angeles had found the vineyard online and left a comment: “Beautiful history. Can we come visit sometime?”
Michael’s jaw tightened. He scratched his chin, then muttered, “Well… maybe they got good taste.”
Sofia grinned. “Told you. The world is changing, Uncle Mike. Whether you like it or not.”
Dominic shook his head, grumbling, “The world’s always changing. Doesn’t mean it’s changing for the better.”
But even he leaned in closer to see as more names began to appear on the screen, strangers reaching across the void, knocking at the vineyard door — not with torches this time, but with clicks and comments.
And though Michael would never admit it out loud, some part of him wondered if maybe — just maybe — the internet wasn’t going anywhere after all.
The Obama Years
November 5, 2008 – Election Night
The television flickered in the corner of the kitchen, its glow casting blue light across the walls. NBC’s anchor leaned into the camera, his voice solemn but electric with history.
“Barack Obama, projected winner… the first African American president of the United States. Crowds are pouring into Grant Park in Chicago tonight, waving flags, cheering, some in tears. The world is watching this moment. History has been made.”
Cheers roared through the TV speaker, thousands chanting “Yes We Can!” The sound filled the farmhouse kitchen, spilling over the smell of garlic bread and strong coffee.
Michael scowled, muting the set with a jab of the remote. “That’s enough of that.”
Sofia spun in her chair, incredulous. “Enough? Uncle Mike, the whole country is celebrating. You’re seeing history right here! My kids will read about this someday.”
Michael, in his early sixties now, broad-shouldered and gray at the temples, slammed his palm on the table. The cups rattled. “Don’t start, Sofia. You know me better than that. I’m not racist. I never was. I just don’t like the man’s politics. He’s a Democrat, and I can’t stand his policies. That’s it.”
Dominic, sitting across with his arms crossed, nodded slowly. His voice was gravel, worn down by years in the sun. “You think he cares about people like us? Folks who work with their hands, who sweat to keep a vineyard alive? Pretty speeches don’t mean a damn thing when you can’t pay the bills.”
Sofia shook her head, eyes flashing. “That’s not how it sounds to people out there. You tear him down, and all they hear is the same thing they’ve been hearing forever — that you can’t stand a Black man in the White House.”
Michael leaned forward, finger stabbing the air. “He’s half White! Half! But nobody ever says that, do they? Nobody calls him the first biracial president. No. It’s always ‘the first Black president,’ and the second you disagree with him, suddenly you’re branded a racist. That’s not fair, Sofia. That’s not honest.”
Dominic leaned in too, his eyes narrowing. “And don’t you dare lecture us about prejudice. Our grandfather was called dago, wop, papist — spat on, chased out of places. We were outsiders long before you were born. Don’t tell me I don’t know what it’s like to be hated just for who you are.”
Sofia’s voice softened, though her chin stayed high. “I know, Uncle Dom. I know what Nonno went through. But this is different. Times have changed. And when you talk like that, when you slam Obama every time he opens his mouth, you don’t sound like men who know prejudice. You sound like men who can’t see past it.”
The kitchen went quiet. The muted TV screen replayed images of Obama’s victory speech, his family waving to the crowd. The clock ticked on the wall. Outside, the rows of vines lay in silence, their roots sunk deep in the valley soil.
Michael finally leaned back, rubbing his forehead with a tired hand. “Maybe we just see the world different, Sofia. Maybe that’s the real divide. Not race. Not even politics. Just generations. You grew up in a different America than we did.”
Sofia looked at him, at Dominic, at the table heavy with food that nobody touched. “Maybe so,” she said quietly. “But don’t expect me to stop pushing you. Not when it matters.”
The TV screen glowed on, a new president waving to a jubilant crowd, as three Sielis sat at the old kitchen table, divided by years, yet bound by blood.
A House Divided
March 23, 2010 – CNN News Report
The television buzzed again in the corner of the kitchen. A sharp-voiced anchor gestured at the camera.
“Today, President Obama signed into law the Affordable Care Act, one of the most sweeping healthcare reforms in American history. Supporters say it will expand access to millions of uninsured Americans. Critics argue it represents government overreach of unprecedented scale.”
Michael groaned and muted the set. “Government overreach? That’s the polite way of sayin’ socialism.”
Dominic, now with reading glasses perched low on his nose, waved his hand dismissively. “I told you. They’ll use this to get their hooks into every small business, every farmer, every family that ever tried to stand on its own two feet. Just wait — premiums will skyrocket, taxes too. Nothing free in this world.”
Sofia, sitting across from them, leaned forward, eyes blazing. “Free? This is about people who can’t afford to go to a doctor finally being able to see one. You think it’s easy for a single mom in Fresno to pay for her kid’s asthma inhaler? Or a field worker without insurance who breaks his arm?”
Michael barked, his voice like thunder. “Don’t preach to me about working folks, Sofia! I’ve been breaking my back on this land for sixty years. I’ve hired more men than you’ve ever met. Mexicans, Blacks, Portuguese, Okies, you name it. And I paid ‘em fair. That’s not government making me do it. That’s me. That’s how it should be. Not Washington telling me what I owe and how to live.”
Dominic crossed his arms, his tone colder. “And don’t forget, Sofia, the same government that gives, takes. First it’s health care. Next it’s guns, churches, schools. Mark my words — this man’s setting a precedent that’ll bite harder down the road.”
Sofia’s jaw tightened. “You two sound paranoid. Obama isn’t out to steal your farm or your rifles. He’s trying to build a country where everyone has a chance, not just the ones lucky enough to have land and family behind them. That’s the America I believe in.”
The silence that followed was heavier than the night outside. The only sound was the wind pressing against the farmhouse windows.
After the Amen (circa 2010)
A year after Teresa died, the pew still kept her shape.
Michael tried not to look at it—tried to focus on Father Ochoa’s homily, on the way the stained glass broke the morning into workable colors—but grief had a way of tugging at the sleeve. He sat straighter, folded his big hands together, and willed himself, for the length of the Creed, to be a man with fewer memories.
After Mass, the parish spilled into the courtyard in a familiar eddy—babies fussing, old men arguing about irrigation, teenagers pretending not to be shy. Michael stood near the statue of St. Joseph, nodding at condolences that had grown softer with time. He was about to escape when she stepped in front of him, smiling like she meant it.
“Michael,” she said, “I saved you a cinnamon roll.”
Her name was Angela Cortez—late fifties, a widow, choir alto, the kind of woman who knew everyone’s birthday and which kid had a scholarship audition. She held out a paper plate. The frosting shone in the sun like a small apology from the universe.
“Thank you,” Michael said, taking it. “You didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to,” she replied, tilting her head. “You’ll walk me to the bake sale table? People run me over if I don’t have a bodyguard.”
He offered his arm, surprised to hear his own voice come out steady. They spoke of harmless things: the trumpet section overshooting the Gloria, the apricot crop, the rumor that the Knights might finally fix the wobbly flagpole. When she laughed, it sounded like a door opening on a warm kitchen.
“Coffee sometime?” Angela asked, more brave than coy. “There’s a place on Belmont that doesn’t burn the beans.”
Michael’s mouth said, “Sure.” His chest said, “Careful.”
Sofia found him an hour later at the vineyard office, staring at the calendar like it had changed languages.
“You look like a man deciding whether to jump in the canal,” she said, leaning on the doorframe. “What’s up?”
“Coffee,” he said.
“Is this a code word or the beverage?”
“A woman asked me.”
Sofia’s face split into a grin. “From church? Oh, Uncle Mike!” She crossed and kissed his cheek. “This is good. You’re allowed, you know.”
He bristled at the tenderness, the way men do when a truth lines up a little too cleanly. “It’s just coffee.”
“Sure,” she said lightly. “Just coffee. And if you decide after seven years you like coffee again, there’s no law against it.”
“It’s been one year,” he muttered.
She softened. “I know.”
He looked past her, out at the rows. The vines had leafed out thick that spring, a showy proof that the world didn’t stop when yours did. “I don’t want to make a fool of myself,” he said. “Or worse—make a fool of her.”
“You won’t,” Sofia said. “But you can say no later if it doesn’t feel right. You don’t owe anybody a performance.”
He nodded. He wished grief came with a manual and a torque wrench.
They met on a Tuesday at ten. The café smelled of orange peel and espresso. Angela wore a denim jacket and a scarf with roses. She’d chosen a table by the window where the sunlight made a long rectangle—half of it warm, half of it gentled by shade. “Pick your side,” she said. “I like a room that tells the truth about a day.”
Michael chose the shade. He didn’t say why.
They talked. It surprised him how easy it was to be—if not cheerful, then unserious. She’d taught second grade until retirement and now helped her son run a nursery on the edge of town. She had a weak spot for strays: cats, kids without grandparents, the infirm neighbor with the broken gate. She asked after the vineyard with real interest, wanting to understand rootstock and frost fans and why grapes needed to suffer to be good.
“My husband—Miguel—thought wine was showing off,” she teased. “But he also thought salsa needed to be weaponized.”
“God rest him,” Michael said, and meant it.
“God rest Teresa, too,” she replied, soft and sure. “I liked her. She made inhumanly good biscotti.”
“She cheated,” Michael said. “Almond extract from the Italian deli only open on Thursdays.”
They both laughed. It felt like stepping into a room without checking the ceiling for leaks.
“Walk?” Angela asked after refills. “There’s an antique shop down the block that sells old rosaries. I like to imagine whose prayers they held.”
They wandered past storefronts and melons piled on pallets. Angela slipped her hand into the crook of his arm without asking. He didn’t pull away. He didn’t even think to. An hour later, in the parking lot, she squeezed his elbow. “This was nice,” she said. “No pressure. Just… nice.”
“Yeah,” he said. “It was.”
He drove home feeling like a man walking a ditch bank he’d known all his life and finding a new bend.
Sofia met him on the porch with two glasses of iced tea and a question in her eyebrows.
“Fine,” he said before she asked. “We talked. We walked. Nobody fainted.”
“Well,” she said, settling beside him. “That’s already better than your first date with Aunt Teresa. Nonna said you tripped over your own boots and spilled Chianti on your shirt.”
“I married above my station,” he admitted.
“And you might… try having coffee again,” she ventured.
He let the silence do a lap of the porch. “I don’t know what I’m trying.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “Try is a verb.”
For a few weeks, Michael and Angela met on careful terms—church socials, coffee after the 8 a.m. Mass, a parish workday where they both ended up scooping gravel into wheelbarrows and arguing amiably about tomato varieties. He found that he liked the way she held a conversation like a good driver holds a lane—firm, gentle corrections, an eye for the shoulder.
He also found the guilt: a tide that rose without the moon’s permission. He’d be laughing and then would see Teresa’s hands kneading bread, Teresa’s jaw set when she was about to forgive him for something she swore she’d remember until Easter. The love didn’t dim; it glowed stubborn as an ember even as he stood in a new circle of light. He didn’t know if there was room for both.
One afternoon, he took Angela by the church to show her the stained glass Teresa had fundraised for—a panel of the Visitation. The two women in the glass leaned toward each other, joy and worry equal in their posture.
“Beautiful,” Angela murmured. “Your Teresa picked that?”
“She said it looked like two women telling each other, ‘I believe you.’”
They stood, quiet. Michael felt the ground tilting toward a sentence. He tried to step away from it and found that grief, like gravity, doesn’t negotiate.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he said. “I don’t even know what this is. You deserve someone who… knows.”
Angela watched a sunbeam reach slowly across the tile. “Michael,” she said, “there are no experts. There are only honest men and the other kind. You’re the first kind. If all we ever have is coffee and a pew and prayers for each other’s children, I’ll still be grateful.”
He exhaled. It surprised him that the feeling underneath wasn’t relief, exactly, but a loosening of a strap he hadn’t noticed cutting into his shoulder.
“Would you like to come to Sunday dinner?” he asked, then panicked at his own daring. “No pressure. Just lasagna and my brother telling lies.”
Angela smiled. “I’d like that.”
Sunday arrived with kitchen noise and the ordered chaos of women who had long ago stopped asking permission to run the world. Daniel set out bottles. Nonna Rosa’s apron hung on the peg like a flag retired but not forgotten. Michael took a lasagna from the oven and burned his forearm and swore in a way that made the children pretend shock.
When Angela walked in with a cabbage salad and a bakery box, the Sieli clan did what it always did to kindness: they crowded it. Dominic kissed her cheek and asked if she knew how to cheat at cards. Marco offered wine and opinions on the Giants. Sofia watched her uncle’s posture like a nurse checks a pulse.
Dinner ran long and warm. Stories piled on stories. After coffee, Michael walked Angela to her car under a sky folding itself into indigo.
“You have a loud family,” she said, pleased.
“We’re Italian.”
“You’re American.”
“Both,” he conceded.
At the door, she reached up and kissed his cheek. It was gentle, a punctuation mark, not a new chapter. “Thank you,” she said. “Goodnight.”
He stood in the driveway long after her taillights turned into rumor. He knew then what he’d only suspected: his love for Teresa was not a room in a house with doors you could close and open; it was the house itself. You could invite people in, add rooms, repaint the trim. But you didn’t tear down the beams and claim you were starting fresh.
He also knew another truth, smaller but not trivial: he did not want to be married again. He wasn’t lonely, not in the way that breaks men. He had the vineyard, and God, and people who carried his name and the same stubborn mercy in their blood. He wanted a chair at the table and someone to save him a cinnamon roll in the courtyard once in a while. That would be enough.
Sofia tried, one last time, with the subtlety of a freight train.
They were pruning the north block, February sharp enough to make eyes water. She worked the spur with quick hands; he stood, secateurs paused, as if the vine had asked him a tricky question.
“She’s nice,” Sofia said.
“She is.”
“And you two… look like you enjoy each other.”
“We do.”
“And…?” She let the word be wide and kind.
He clicked the secateurs, snipped, let the cuttings drop. “And I’m okay,” he said. “I miss your aunt the way a man misses his shadow when the sun is too high. I talk to her sometimes when the rows are quiet. I’m not crazy. I just… love her. Still. And I love you all. That fills the house.”
Sofia swallowed, nodded, kept her eyes on the cane. “You don’t have to prove anything to me,” she said. “I just want you to be happy.”
“I am,” he said, surprised to hear that it was true enough. “Not the loud kind. The other kind.”
She leaned over and bumped his shoulder with hers. “Fine. But I’m still putting you on the St. Valentine’s dance setup crew. You can carry chairs and judge the playlist.”
He groaned. “You’re cruel.”
“I’m efficient,” she said, grinning.
In April, Michael planted a fig tree near the kitchen, where Teresa used to stand and scold finches for their impertinence. He dug the hole the way he did most things—broad-shouldered, economical, steady. As he tamped the soil, Daniel came up the path with two beers, set them on the steps, and watched.
“Looks good,” Daniel said.
“She liked figs,” Michael replied.
Daniel watched him for a beat. “You okay, Mike?”
Michael nodded. He pressed his palm to the new soil. “I think so,” he said. “Some men remarry. Some men don’t. Some men date and decide it’s too much noise. I’m in the last group. But I’m not empty. I’ve got the rows, and the kids, and—” he waved vaguely at the house, the vines, the crucifix in the kitchen window—“everything.”
Daniel passed him a beer. “To everything,” he said.
“To enough,” Michael countered, clinking the bottle.
A few days later, he saw Angela in the courtyard and waved. She waved back, uncomplicated. They spoke of the parish rummage sale and a new family in the back pew with twin toddlers and the bravery that required. As they parted, she squeezed his hand.
“I like you just like this,” she said. “Don’t change on my account.”
“I won’t,” he said, and meant it with a clarity that felt like sunlight.
Summer found him the way it always did: dust in the cuffs, sweat in the collar, joy disguised as work. In the cool of late evening, he sat on the porch with Sofia and watched her scroll through photos of grandkids playing tag between barrels. The fig put out its first little leaves, bright as promises.
“Uncle Mike?” Sofia said once, eyes on the horizon that swallowed Fresno and gave it back again. “Are you lonely?”
He took his time. “Sometimes,” he said. “But not in a scary way. I miss one person. The rest of the table’s full.”
She took his hand. “Okay,” she said.
They watched the light leave the rows the way a tide leaves a beach—without argument, without apology. Owls woke. Somewhere, a child laughed and was shushed. The house breathed.
Michael lifted his bottle in a small toast to the absent and the present. “After the Amen,” he said, “you still have to do the dishes.”
Sofia laughed. “Profound.”
“True,” he said.
And when the night settled for good, he rose, turned off the porch light, and walked inside the house he hadn’t chosen so much as kept—widower, brother, uncle, veteran, vigneron, stubborn keeper of vows. Not alone. Not remarried. Somewhere between.
It was enough.
November 6, 2012 – Election Night, Obama’s Re-Election
The TV glowed again with images of jubilant crowds. “President Barack Obama has been re-elected, defeating Mitt Romney after a heated campaign…”
Michael shook his head in disbelief. “Four more years. God help us.”
Dominic muttered, “Shows you what this country’s becoming. They want handouts, not hard work.”
Sofia snapped back, “That’s insulting, Uncle Dom. People voted for him because they believe in something better. My generation — we see a man who looks like America. Mixed, complicated, not perfect but real. He gives us hope.”
Michael slammed his hand on the table. “Hope don’t pay the bills! Hope don’t keep a vineyard alive when water runs dry and taxes choke the life outta you. All that ‘Yes We Can’ is just words. Empty words.”
Sofia rose from her chair, her voice trembling but strong. “Maybe words matter, Uncle Mike. Maybe words are what carry people who don’t have land, who don’t have a family name, who don’t have a vineyard behind them. Words gave you a voice when our people were called dagos and wops. Don’t you dare tell me words don’t matter.”
The room fell silent. Michael’s jaw worked, but no reply came. Dominic looked away, staring at the old crucifix on the wall.
Outside, the vineyard rows stretched in silence under the moonlight, roots deep in the soil — as deep and tangled as the family itself.
Selfies in the Vines
By 2016, the Sieli Vineyard had not only a website and a Facebook page, but Sofia had gone further. She set up something new — something that made Michael groan the minute he heard the name.
“Instagram,” Sofia announced at the kitchen table, holding up her phone like a priest with a relic.
Michael frowned. “What the hell’s an Instamatic?”
“Instagram,” she corrected. “It’s about pictures. People post photos, short videos. It’s huge. If we want younger customers, this is where they are.”
Dominic grunted, setting down his coffee cup. “Pictures? We already got pictures. They’re framed on the wall. What more do people need?”
Sofia smirked. “They don’t just want to see our pictures. They want to take their own. Out here, in the vineyard. With hashtags like ‘#winecountry’ and ‘#vintagevibes.’”
Michael threw up his hands. “Hashtags? I thought the pound sign was for dialing phones! Now people are tramping through rows of grapes just to take pictures of themselves? Ridiculous.”
But it wasn’t ridiculous. Within months, cars with out-of-state plates started pulling up to the vineyard. Young couples in floppy hats and sunglasses strolled into the vines, phones raised like divining rods. They snapped selfies, posed with the flagpole, even sat on the old tractor as if it were a museum piece.
One Saturday, Michael stormed into the yard, waving his arms. “Hey! This ain’t no carnival! You don’t just waltz in here with your lattes and start climbing on my equipment!”
The couple blinked at him, smiling nervously. “We’re big fans,” the woman said. “We saw your vineyard on Instagram. It’s beautiful! Could you take our picture?”
Michael sputtered. “Your picture? Lady, I’m trying to prune vines, not run a photo booth!”
From the porch, Sofia called out, “Uncle Mike, relax! They’re customers. They’ll buy wine after.”
And they did. They bought two cases.
Dominic, however, wasn’t convinced. One evening he sat at the table, muttering into his glass of red. “You know what bothers me most? They don’t come to taste the wine. They don’t care about the history, the land, the work. They come for… what do you call it, Sofia?”
“Content,” she answered with a grin.
“Content,” Dominic repeated bitterly. “A hundred and fifty years of sweat and blood, and now it’s reduced to content.”
Michael jabbed a finger toward her. “I told you back in ’99, this internet thing is a fad. And look — now the fad is takin’ pictures of yourself instead of living your life. Whole world’s gone mad.”
Sofia just smiled, tapping her phone. “And yet that madness just sold us three cases of merlot last week. Times change, Uncle Mike. You can fight it or you can use it. But it’s not going away.”
The kitchen fell into silence, except for the ding of Sofia’s phone. Another notification, another “like,” another stranger out there in the world staring at a picture of their vines.
Michael sighed, muttering into his wine. “Vines don’t grow any faster with likes.”
But when he saw the vineyard’s Instagram page later that week — the rows glowing gold at sunset, the flagpole standing tall, the family gathered for harvest — even Michael had to admit, if only to himself, that it did look beautiful.
The Cousins from the South
It started, as many modern miracles do, with a message on Instagram.
A young woman named Luciana Sieli—her profile picture framed by the blue and white of an Argentine flag—had sent Sofia a note:
“Ciao, prima! I think we are family. My great-grandfather came from Liguria too, to Buenos Aires, around 1908. He said his cousins went to California. Could they be you?”
Sofia almost scrolled past it, thinking it a scam. But curiosity tugged at her, and within hours she was on a video call with faces that looked achingly familiar—dark eyes, expressive hands, the same half-smile her father used to make when amused.
By the following summer, Luciana and her brother Tomás arrived in Fresno. When they stepped out of the car at Sieli Vineyards, the valley heat hit them like an oven—but they smiled. “It feels like Mendoza,” Tomás said, gazing over the vines. “Different grapes, same sun.”
The family gathered on the porch that evening. Michael and Dominic, still getting used to the idea of being long-distance cousins to Spanish-speaking Italians, poured wine and tried their best at slow, deliberate English. The Argentines laughed warmly and replied in a melodic mix of Spanish and Italian, with bursts of Lunfardo slang that left the Californians bewildered but delighted.
“Somos los mismos, just in different lands,” Luciana said, touching her chest. “In Argentina, half the people have last names like ours—Sieli, Rossi, Bianchi, Esposito. You walk down the street and it sounds like Napoli or Genova, but with tango playing in the background.”
Sofia leaned forward. “You mean there are that many Italians in Argentina?”
Luciana nodded, her eyes bright. “More than half the country has some Italian blood. Millions! They came poor, like yours did—bricklayers, winemakers, fishermen—and they built Buenos Aires, Rosario, Córdoba. My bisnonno always said: ‘We left Italy, but Italy never left us.’”
Dominic smiled at that. “Sounds like something our Nonno would’ve said.”
Tomás raised his glass. “To the Sielis—the ones who planted vines in two hemispheres, and whose roots go deeper than borders.”
They drank, and laughter spilled out across the rows of grapes that shimmered under the Fresno dusk. The cousins spoke of Argentina’s Italian festivals, of pizza and pasta more beloved there than in Rome itself. They talked about Mate tea, about football rivalries, about how Buenos Aires’ old Italian neighborhoods—La Boca, San Telmo, Barracas—still carried the rhythm of immigrant feet and the scent of tomato sauce and espresso.
“Most people think Italians only went to America through Ellis Island,” Sofia said, shaking her head in wonder. “They don’t realize how many went south.”
Luciana nodded. “They went everywhere. Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Venezuela. Millions. We made new homes but carried the same songs, the same saints, the same stubbornness.”
That night, under the California stars, the two families dined together—empanadas beside lasagna, Malbec poured next to Zinfandel. Luciana taught Sofia to say “che boludo” with proper Buenos Aires flair; Dominic tried to teach Tomás how to curse in Italian dialect.
When the night ended, Michael stood and raised his glass. “Our ancestors crossed oceans,” he said. “They didn’t speak the same languages, but they believed in the same thing—that family outlasts everything. Land. War. Even distance. Tonight, I think they’d be proud.”
Luciana smiled, tears glinting in her eyes. “And now we’ve come full circle.”
The vines rustled softly in the warm valley breeze, as if whispering in two languages—Italian and Spanish—one story told across continents, one family that had never truly been apart.
The New Century
Epigraph: Fresno Bee (Nov. 9, 2016) — “TRUMP ELECTED PRESIDENT: PROMISES WALL, JOBS, AND AMERICAN GREATNESS”
Election Night
The old farmhouse living room glowed with TV light. Wine glasses clinked nervously as counties turned red and blue across the map. When the networks finally called it, Dominic jumped up, pumping his fist.
“Finally!” he shouted. “A President who gets it. Borders, jobs, America first!”
Michael, now silver-haired but sharp as ever, stood and shook his cousin’s hand. “We’ve waited decades for someone who speaks plain. No more excuses, no more open borders. He’ll clean this mess up.”
Sofia sat rigid, her glass untouched. “He also talks about walls, about bans. Do you not hear the fear in his words?”
Dominic turned to her. “What I hear is a man who says what we’ve always said around this table: obey the law. Come legal, work legal, respect this country. That’s all we ask.”
The Vineyard’s Policy
In 2017, Dominic held a meeting in the barn, where workers gathered for contracts. A young Mexican father nervously handed over his green card.
Dominic clapped him on the shoulder. “Good. You’re legal, you’re here, you work, you get paid fair. That’s how it’s done.”
Later, over dinner, Dominic explained to the family. “We’re using E-Verify now. No more shadow labor. If you’re here, you’re documented. If you’re not, you’re out. That’s what Trump wants, that’s what we do.”
Sofia leaned forward. “And what if the system makes it nearly impossible for some? What if they’re good people, like Juan’s cousin, who worked here for years before the paperwork ran out?”
Michael cut in. “Then they fix their paperwork, or they go. We don’t cheat. Nonno Pietro raised us on dignity. That means law and order.”
Caterina’s great-granddaughter, Elena, muttered, “Dignity once meant hiding our accents. Now it means hiding behind rules.”
Dominic’s eyes flashed. “Dignity means doing things the right way, not the easy way. That’s the American way.”
Holidays and Hyphenates
That December, Dominic hung a giant American flag across the tasting room. Beneath it, a sign read: Christmas and Independence Day Are Enough.
At the Christmas dinner, Mike raised a toast. “This is America. No need for Cinco de Mayo, no Diwali, no Lunar New Year. We are one people, one flag, one nation. That’s what Trump says, and he’s right.”
Sofia laughed bitterly. “One people? Then why do you still make St. Joseph’s bread every March? Why do you light candles for San Gennaro? Why do we gather under sycamores to bless the vines?”
Michael frowned. “That’s family tradition, not politics.”
Sofia shot back, “It’s Italian tradition. And when others celebrate theirs, you call it divisive.”
The room grew tense. Lucia, frail and nearly ninety-five, cleared her throat. “Do not forget. Our saints are no less foreign than theirs. Once, Anglos mocked us for feasts. Now we mock others.”
Dominic tried to soften. “We’re not against tradition, Nonna. We’re against chaos. Too many flags, too many languages, and we stop being American.”
Lucia’s eyes gleamed. “Or perhaps we become more American than ever.”
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