Nina had no idea what being set a novena entailed, but from the look on Carlo’s face it didn’t seem like something she ever wished to experience herself.

Rosa now ladled a scoop of steaming polenta into Nina’s bowl and topped it with a splash of warm milk. It was warm, she realized, because it had just come out of the cow, with flecks of yellow butterfat clearly visible in the puddle of ivory milk, and yet nothing would have induced her to complain. At a muttered command from Rosa, Carlo fetched a mug and set it at Nina’s elbow. “Coffee,” he whispered shyly, but only after swallowing a great gulp of the stuff did Nina realize it was caffè d’orzo, the awful imposter made of roasted barley that she’d always vowed she would never be desperate enough to drink. She drank it now.

The men came in as she was finishing, and were also served polenta and milk and ersatz coffee, along with a thick slice of fried ham that Rosa dropped into their bowls once most of the polenta was gone.

It would have been nice to sit and talk for a while, but a stern glance from Rosa had Agnese and Angela fetching brooms and rags and an ancient wooden bucket from the corner.

“You girls get started, and I’ll finish up with the kitchen,” Rosa said, and Nina wasn’t sure if that included her, too, or if she was meant to do something else entirely.

Nico noticed, of course. “What do you think if Nina helps the girls today? Rosa?”

“Fine.”

“Remember, girls, that Nina has been busy studying how to become a nurse. She knows a lot about helping sick people, but it’s been a while since she’s had time for housecleaning.”

“You’ll probably have to remind me how to do everything,” Nina admitted, and when she looked to Nico with a grateful smile he just nodded and winked at her.

They began by stripping the sheets from the bed in Nina’s room, revealing a mattress that was nothing more than a thick felted pad on top of an enormous fabric bag, its contents flattened almost to nothing. Following Agnese’s directions, Nina and the girls shook out the bag, rather as one might fluff a giant’s pillow, and laid it back upon the interlaced ropes of the bed frame.

“What is inside?” Nina asked, since she’d never known a feather bed to crackle and crunch so noisily.

“Corn husks,” Angela said. “With a nice soft pad on top to stop the pokey bits from coming through.”

They remade the bed with much-mended but crisply ironed sheets, dusted every stick of furniture with dampened rags, and Angela carried the simple rag rugs outside to be beaten and aired.