Mass. Her stomach churned just to think of it. Last night he had offered to explain it to her—what to expect and how she ought to behave—but she had fallen asleep before he had so much as unbuttoned his shirt.

“What time do we leave?”

“Mass begins at half-past eight, but the bells start chiming at eight o’clock. We’ll leave then.”

“What shall I wear?”

The bed groaned as he sat to lace up his boots. “What sort of clothes would you typically wear to Sabbath services?”

“The best of my everyday clothes. I didn’t dress up too much. Mamma used to say we weren’t meant to look like we were going to a party.”

“My mother would have agreed with her.”

“Should I bring a scarf to cover my hair?”

“Only the older women here do that, and the younger ones don’t really bother with hats. That’s something for city girls,” he said with a grin.

She fell back asleep after he left to care for the animals, but woke as soon as she heard the children’s voices in the kitchen. Breakfast was polenta and milk, again, and Rosa refused her offer to help with the dishes, again, so Nina retreated to her room and set about getting dressed for church. She wasn’t sure what Rosa would wear, nor did she feel she could ask, so she chose the dress she’d worn for her twenty-first birthday two years before, its pretty blue fabric still crisp and bright.

She was brushing her hair when Nico knocked at the door.

“Come in,” she answered. “I’m done now—I’ll go downstairs.”

“No need. I’ll tell you about Mass while I dress. The others are in the kitchen or outside.”

She sat on the bed and turned her back, and as he changed out of his work clothes he told her what to expect.

“To start, the service is in Latin, not Italian, so hardly anyone there truly understands what Father Bernardi is saying. It’s all memory—we just say the words in the order we learned them when we were little.”

“That’s a little bit like services at home. I only understand a bit of the . . . well. You know. Where will I be sitting?”

“With me. Men and women sit together in Catholic churches. So it will be easy for you to watch what I’m doing and parrot it as best you can. When it’s time for Holy Communion, you’ll follow me to the front and we’ll kneel at the altar rail, and when Father Bernardi comes near you’ll open your mouth so he can put the host on your tongue. Then you’ll make the sign of the cross—forehead to navel, left shoulder to right shoulder—and we’ll go back to our pew.”

“Won’t I get in trouble?” she asked, her apprehension growing anew.