“Your heart is tired,” he explained, “and having to work harder than usual to keep you going, and that is why you feel light-headed at times.” He looked in her eyes as he spoke, and when she began to clutch at the bedclothes, pulling and twisting, he calmed her hands with his.

He gave her a moment to take it all in, and when she began to cry he offered a clean handkerchief from his pocket. “I know you hate the idea of it, but I do think you must consider a move to the Casa di Riposo. There you will have help. You won’t have to waste your energy on housework and the like. And the food is excellent.”

“But I have lived here for almost fifty years,” Signora Mele protested. “Ever since Daniele and I were married.” Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she didn’t attempt to wipe them away. “All my memories are here.”

“Where are your daughters?” Antonina’s father asked.

“Giulia is in Austria with her husband. They moved long before the war. I haven’t heard from her in months and months. And my Mara is in Bologna, but she is busy with the children, and her husband has been out of work for so long . . .”

“Of course. I understand. Well, let me see what I can do. Try to eat as much as your appetite allows, but not too much soup. Not too much water either.”

“Thank you, doctor. I have a few lire—”

“No, no. None of that. Is there anything else we may bring you before we go? No? In that case we will let ourselves out, and Antonina will come in the morning to give you another dose of the tincture.”

The walk home took an eternity. Her father was exhausted, and leaned ever more heavily on her arm as they moved from shadow to shadow, and by the time they were safely inside their own house, Antonina wanted nothing more than to retreat to her bedroom and bury herself under her eiderdown and blankets.

But her father always found it difficult to sleep after such calls, and without her mother at home Antonina was the only person who might offer him comfort. So she helped him out of his coat and crouched to unlace his boots, and once he was settled in his favorite chair in the study, she went to the kitchen to fix a hot water bottle for his arthritis and a dose of grappa for the rest of him.

He sighed happily when she set the earthenware bottle under his feet and the glass of spirits in his hands. “Thank you. For this, and for your help tonight.” He sipped at the grappa, his gaze intent upon her. “What do you think? What diagnosis would you offer?”

“Congestive heart failure?”

“Yes. Hence my insistence that she move to the rest home.”

“Only if her daughter won’t take her in.”