It doesn’t feel permanent. Sofia can no more see the rest of her life now than she could when she was fifteen. She considered a moment of panic at until death us do part but her death is impossible to imagine.

Saul toasts the bread and boils the eggs. He hands Sofia a plate with two slices of toast drizzled with honey, an egg still rolling in its hot shell. “I have to go in early, but I’ll be back early.” Sofia chews and nods. Saul kisses her on the cheek. He says, “I’ll call about dinner.”

“Thank you,” says Sofia, but Saul doesn’t hear her as he leaves.

The hours after Saul leaves for work stretch out in front of her and disappear into the distance. Sofia idles: forgetting to comb her hair, leaving her dishes in the sink. Standing limply in the living room, peering out the window. She is fourteen, raiding the fridge while her family is at Mass. Inside her body the baby she made with Saul is fluttering its hands and feet against her organs, tap-tapping like a branch against a window, like the wings of a moth against a screen door.

—

On the first Friday of July in 1942, as he does every first Friday of every month, Joey Colicchio dresses in his simplest and most expensive suit. He shaves, though it is afternoon and he already shaved once in the morning. He inhales the peppermint of his aftershave and checks his teeth for poppy seeds. He checks his breast pocket for the Fianzo envelope, and wipes his palms on his trousers before leaving the house.

Outside, Saul stands patiently on the sidewalk. His face is calm; it is one of the things Joey likes most about him. His face was calm in the heart of the bustling deli where Joey found him; and it is calm now, in long sleeves and pants on a July afternoon. “Thank you for meeting me,” says Joey, kissing Saul on both cheeks. They get into a waiting car, which is idling on the street in front of Joey’s building. Saul does not ask why; it is something else Joey likes about him. Saul trusts that he will learn what he needs to know when he needs to know it.