A board with bread and a knife lay in the center of the table, a bowl with what looked like fresh honey, including the honeycomb on the board next to it. RJ cut herself a piece of bread, and then, thinking of the story, she dipped it into the polenta like Fred.

“Now you eat like an Italian.” Tessa returned to her kneading.

“I was reading the memoir. What does, Portami a casa mean?”

“Bring me home. I suppose Ziggy gave you her English copy?”

“Yes. It’s very…compelling.”

Tessa looked up. “Wait until you get to the love scene.”

“There’s a love scene?”

“How do you think Ziggy got here? She is Sigfrid’s direct descendant.”

“And you’re not?”

Tessa laughed, even as she took out a long, thin rolling pin. “No. Sigfrid wasn’t my father. His son was my half-brother. He was ten years older than me. She’d floured the table, and now cut the dough into pieces. “My father was a man named Rafael Gabrielli. He married my mother after the war. Good man. He loved Sig, despite, well, despite Sig not being his.”

“What happened to the original Sigfrid.”

Tess looked up. “Oh, I can’t give away the ending.” She winked, then began to flatten the dough onto the table with the rolling pin.

“So, you’re not a Mattucci.”

“It’s my maiden name, but technically, no, Santini’s last name is Fonda. But Ziggy—she bears the family name. The family legacy.”

She watched Tessa roll out the dough, fold it, then roll it out again, thinner. “What are you making?”

“Spaghetti.”

“I thought that was bread.”

“No, see, it’s not as elastic as bread. And it’s more orange. That’s the eggs.” She held up a thicker piece, then put it back on the board and folded it over onto itself. “The key is to keep rolling it out until it becomes paper thin. Then, you cut it and let it dry, just a little. Or, put it fresh in the pot.”

She gestured to a drying rack, on the counter.

Oh, to cook like Tessa.

The thought stirred inside her. Wait—what? The last thing RJ had ever wanted to be was domestic. Her idea of making pasta involved boiling water and a blue box of Kraft.

It was possible Tessa could also read minds because she looked at RJ, then at Hana. “Would you like to try?”

“Yes.”

“Finish your polenta. You and Hana can roll out the next ones.”

RJ picked up a spoon, then turned to Hana. The little girl had set down her bread on the table, was holding her paper and coloring the kitty orange. “I like your kitty.”

Hana looked at her.

“You know—meow, meow.” She made the sound.

And just like that Hana smiled, her blue eyes brightening, and she laughed.