The others talked of the farm and the village for a while, and though Nina tried at first to listen, it was easier, and far more pleasant, to simply sit and be. Everything around her was so ordinary, so familiar, and so wonderfully precious. No place would ever again be so welcome to her as this plain, homey kitchen; no people would ever be so dear to her as those gathered around its table.

The sun had begun to set when Father Bernardi took his leave, extracting only a promise that they set a date for their civil marriage as soon as bureaucratically possible. “Humor an old man, will you? If only so I may know the joy of blessing your marriage all the sooner.”

Nico and Nina, still holding Lucia, came outside to say goodbye; and then, rather than retreat to the kitchen, Nico led them in the direction of the stables. With Selva glued to their heels, they enjoyed a brief reunion with a sleepy Bello before moving on, Nico stopping now and again to greet the friendlier among the barn cats, until they had come around the back of the house and were looking out over the fields.

They had returned to the place where, only two years before, he had introduced her to his world. He had shown her the land where he worked; he had told her of the ordinary life he had chosen to embrace. And it was then, in that moment, when she had begun to fall in love with him.

“I was so afraid I’d never see this place again,” he said, turning to her. “But that alone wasn’t enough to keep me alive. It was you—you and our child. The memory and the hope of you, and the vows we made.”

“‘I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine,’” she said, remembering.

“There was one night in Flossenburg, early on, when I was close to giving up. And then it came to me—a memory from before. From here, when I was safe with you. It was in August, I think, and I’d come home late from my uncle’s farm. I was so tired I could hardly move, but I was too restless to sleep. And so we lay in bed, and rather than turn down the lamp you fetched my Bible and read to me from the Song of Songs. ‘My beloved speaks and says to me: Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come.’ Those were the words that sustained me on those long nights when I couldn’t sleep. When I’d forgotten how to hope.”

She was still wiping away tears when he spoke again, his voice hesitant, even fearful. “How did you face those nights?”

“Without the hope of you?”