When it snows, Paolo wraps Robbie in blankets and stacks two knit hats on top of one another on his head and carries him outside. Robbie sneezes and blinks furiously as snow lands on his face, and Paolo carries him around and around the block for an hour.

On Christmas, Antonia is bundled into a dress; her hair is brushed. She sits through Mass; Robbie on Paolo’s lap on one side of her and Sofia with Julia on the other. At dinner, she picks listlessly at her food.

Antonia spends the dark months germinating; a life sleeping, undetectable in a hard shell. All around her the days shorten and then begin to lengthen again. The old year slips into the new; all it takes is a second. Antonia avoids mirrors, so disappointed in herself she can’t face her own reflection.

It’s not how she thought it would be.

It’s not how she thought it would be.

—

Sofia remembers this time as a haze of sleeplessness and fear. Antonia lay gray and small in her bed day after day and Sofia held Robbie, rocked him as he cried, learned his smell as well as she had gotten to know Julia’s. Sofia remembers Paolo, helpless, running a hand through his dark hair and saying, I gotta take a leak, I gotta take a walk, I gotta get out of here, and grabbing his coat and going out to smoke, pacing in front of the building; and Sofia, crouching at the bedside, saying, Tonia, I think he’s hungry again, and Antonia opening eyes like tunnels and saying, okay, automatic, empty. Sofia wants to pinch herself awake; this can’t possibly be her life, Antonia’s life. “She’ll be perfectly healthy,” says the doctor, washing his hands after depositing the small snarl of Antonia’s old sutures into the kitchen trash can, and Sofia surprises herself by shouting “What is healthy? What is healthy? Do they make stitches for her mind, for her heart?” so loudly Robbie wakes with an angry scream. “I’m sorry,” she says to the dumbfounded doctor, who has left the water running as he stares at Sofia. “I’m sorry.” She turns to go pick up Robbie. Her heart hurts; her hands tingle.