To make things even worse, she’d begun to feel poorly, her stomach roiling at the sight of nearly every meal that Rosa set before her. After a few days it settled, but she decided to keep up the pretense of feeling unwell a little longer.

Just before leaving the rectory on Palm Sunday, she’d remembered to ask Father Bernardi when Passover began; the following day he had sent her a note—he must have felt very clever when composing it—that read, simply,

The verse in Scripture that I wished to tell you about is the eighth chapter of the fourth book of Exodus.

Unless she had entirely misinterpreted his message, she took it to mean that Passover began on the eighth of April; and though she wasn’t able to observe the holiday as she’d have wished, she was at least able to refuse bread for the week that followed.

“You’ll fade away,” Rosa insisted.

“I won’t. I’m fine with brodo and some vegetables. Anything more is too much.”

Though her nausea had abated, a few days later she began to feel faint while they were weeding the vegetable garden. Rosa sent her inside for a glass of water and told her to get started on the mending, and Nina knew better than to protest. So she fetched the basket of mending and settled herself in the shade of the olive tree, and in no time at all she felt much better.

She was almost finished with the mending when she came across the nightgown she’d been wearing when she and Nico had whispered their vows to one another. It needed only a simple repair where the hem had come unstitched, but looking at the garment made her remember, and remembering made her heart grow tight with longing.

She was wiping her tears away, using the gown as a handkerchief, when Rosa returned from the garden and sat next to her.

“I came to see how you were feeling, but I didn’t expect to find you crying over the mending. I thought you liked doing it.”

“I do. I was having a weak moment. That’s all.”

“Fair enough. Thinking of Nico, were you?”

“Yes. It’s so hard when he’s gone. I try not to dwell on it, but everything reminds me of him.”

Rosa nodded, her features soft with understanding. “I know. I’ve lost count of the nights I’ve lain awake with nothing but my worries for company.”

“You must miss him,” Nina dared to say.

“Nico? Of course I do.”

“I meant Luca.”

There was an awful pause, and Nina feared she had pushed the other woman too far. Rosa had never spoken of her lost love with the rest of her family; why would she choose to confide in Nina now?

But then Rosa nodded. “Every day,” she whispered.

“What was he like?”