“So you won’t forget to hope. So you’ll remember that your love for him, and the strength you gain from that bond, will continue to exist—no matter how long you are separated, and no matter how distant you are from one another. Your love lives on. Can you remember that for me? Can you find a way to hope?”

“Yes, Father,” she whispered.

“I wonder, then, if you might wish to pray with me for a while. Perhaps we might choose one of the psalms?”

Memories assailed her. Nico’s face as he’d knelt before her, taken her hand in his, and vowed to love and honor her for the rest of his life. “There is a passage in the Song of Songs. It begins with ‘Let me be a seal upon your heart’ . . .”

“I know it well.” Without opening his prayer book, Father Bernardi began to recite the blessed words. “‘Let me be a seal upon your heart, like the seal upon your hand. For love is fierce as death, passion is mighty as Sheol; its darts are darts of fire, a blazing flame.’”

“‘Vast floods cannot quench love,’” Nina whispered, “‘nor rivers drown it.’” And then, her eyes closed, her memories fixed on the night she and Nico had said their vows, “‘I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.’”

Despair and grief crashed over her, wave upon wave, and she was defenseless, drowning, alone. She was so alone.

“Father Bernardi? Are you there?”

“I am, but—oh, my heavens!” He jumped to his feet, his chair overturning, and hurried from the kitchen.

Everyone had left her. Her only companion was the pain, rising and fading and rising again. Only her pain remained.

“Nina? Nina? You need to listen to me.” Rosa took hold of her shoulders, her touch gentle but firm. “The baby is coming.”

She looked up, and was alarmed by the expression of panic on Rosa’s face. Rosa, who always knew what to do.

“I don’t understand,” she said, and then, following Rosa’s gaze, she looked down and saw the dark and spreading stain on her skirt.

“Your waters have broken. The baby is coming, and we must get you upstairs again.”

“I didn’t notice . . .”

“Well, poor Father Bernardi did. You’ve given him the fright of his life. Can you get up?”

“I think so,” Nina said, but when she tried to stand her legs crumpled under her weight.

“Papà!” Rosa called. “We need you!”

Aldo came running, and between him and Rosa they were able to get Nina to her feet and up the first flight of stairs. As they reached the landing, though, she was felled again by the pain, and only once it had passed was she able to breathe, let alone move.

“Do you remember anything from school?” Rosa asked as they lumbered up the second run of steps.

“From what?”

“Nursing school.”