“I’ll be done before you know it, and then I’ll bring you a hot brick for your feet. That will warm you all over.”

“Why can’t I sleep in your bed?”

“Because it needs to be changed as well. Now stop complaining and let me finish.”

As soon as Carlo was settled again, the promised brick at his toes and his precious toy airplane in his hands, she went down the hall to finish her and Nico’s room. She’d washed the floors earlier but, contrary to Rosa’s advice, had neglected to first do the dusting. Not that it mattered, for the room looked just as clean as it had the Saturday before.

The only surface that needed attention was the top of the dresser. She wiped down the case that held Nico’s shaving things, the wooden back of his hairbrush, and their shared collection of books. His selection, she decided, perfectly embodied his character. There was a Bible; a gilt-edged book of devotions; a guide to modern farming and animal husbandry, its pages dog-eared and marked with penciled annotations; and a beautiful edition of the Divine Comedy, with scraps of paper peeking out where he had marked his favorite passages.

“I have more,” Nico said from the doorway. “Books, that is. The rest are packed away.”

“Why only these four?”

He now came to stand behind her. “When I returned home, I thought I would build a bookshelf. I couldn’t imagine living without all my books near me. But I’m so tired at night, I hardly ever read.”

She nodded. “I know what you mean. I used to be such a bookworm, but now . . .” She arranged the books neatly on the dresser, his shaving case propping them up at one end and Pietro, the toy rabbit she had brought from home, at the other.

“Perhaps we might read to one another in the evening,” he suggested. “Instead of listening to the radio.”

“I would love that.”

“My father and Rosa would, too. She’s the one who ought to have gone away to school. More brains than the rest of us put together.” Nico reached past Nina to stroke the worn velvet of Pietro’s ear. “Where did he come from?”

“My rucksack. I’d pulled it out from under the bed, so I might sweep the floor there, and Angela peeked inside and found Pietro. She was worried he might be lonely, hidden away under the bed, so I put him out on the dresser. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course not. He looks well loved.”

“Mamma made him for me when I was little. He was always my favorite.”

“Why is he called Pietro?”

“That’s the name of the rabbit in the book by Signorina Potter. We had it, too. The book, I mean. It was in English, so Mamma would translate as she read. I remember being very afraid of the farmer.”

“The farmer?”