“Enough!” It was too much to bear. Too much, and she was far too tired, and lonely, and achingly sad, and more than anything weighed down by grief for her lost home, her life, and her beloved parents, to bear another word of Rosa’s unthinking vitriol. “How dare you judge me? You know nothing about me. Nothing of what I’ve lost—and it’s more than a plate. Far more.”

They stared at one another for a moment, so shocked they had forgotten to breathe, and then Nina sank into a nearby chair, her legs too wobbly to hold her any longer. What had she done?

Rosa stood, leaving the shattered plate where it was, and sat next to Nina. “I’m—”

“Please. Not now.”

“I was going to say that I’m sorry. It wasn’t right, what I said.”

“The thing is . . . you aren’t wrong,” Nina admitted. “I haven’t ever worked this hard before. And I know I’m clumsy and I never seem to get things right. But I am trying.”

Rosa sighed, but there was no anger or bitterness in it. Only exhaustion. If ever there were time for a peace offering, this was it.

“You’re tired,” Nina said. “Let me finish the dishes—I promise I’ll be careful. And you can sit down for a minute.”

“If I do, I’ll never get up again. But if you do the washing up I can get started on soaking the boys’ trousers. Caked in mud up to the knees, and their socks are just as bad. Nico’s are more hole than sock, too. Lord only knows what he does to them.”

“I can darn them. I used to— I mean, I know how to darn and do the mending.” She’d almost said that she used to mend her papà’s socks and clothing, but she was meant to be an orphan. There never would have been a father’s socks to darn.

She took over from Rosa, trying not to flinch when she dipped her hands in the scalding-hot water. There were only a few plates left, and once they were clean and dry and put away, she collected up the dishpan, using the edges of her apron so it wouldn’t slip from her hands, and carried it outside to water the rows of winter chicory and kale.

Rosa was back in the kitchen, her attention fixed on a pair of mud-laden socks, when Nina returned. “What should I do now?”

“The table needs scrubbing, then you can sweep the floor in here. After that’s done you can help me start the bread for tomorrow, and there’s a mountain of mending, too. You might as well get to it while there’s still daylight.”