It takes her several moments to realize she is laughing. The laugh tingles along her arms and legs. It reaches, thumping, into her throat. It settles in her belly, descends smoothly into the void where Robbie once lived, into the parts of Antonia she no longer looks at or touches, the parts that have betrayed her with their fragility, the ease with which they were destroyed.

And Antonia does not break. She laughs and her whole body moves quietly, as one piece, into the dawn.

There it is. Buzzing in the deepest pit of herself, resilient beyond measure, the very smallest bit of Antonia insisting itself back to life.

—

She begins going on walks: short ones, she promises Paolo, just around the block. Once she gets outside she walks as far as she likes, and tells Paolo she lost track of time. Antonia, who had been so hungry for the companionship and consistency of motherhood, finds that she is only strong enough to be a mother if she spends an hour a day completely alone. Young Antonia would have been disappointed: foolishly, of course, because young Antonia, sneaking off to Sunday Mass, knew well the power of keeping part of her life secret. But mamma Antonia is just grateful for survival, for sunlight, for the excitement of jumping away when a car splashes through a black and slushy puddle.

When she eats, Antonia’s food has taste again. When she listens, and speaks, and looks, sounds and sights don’t seem like they are stuck behind dirty, thick glass. The world, slowly, begins to make itself known to her. And Antonia, just as slowly, begins to remake herself as a part of it.

In March, Antonia walks all the way to Sofia’s apartment. Sofia opens the door and hugs her and then goes into the bathroom and gasps and shudders and heaves for air. She presses her palms, her forehead, against the closed bathroom door and for the first time in months she trusts that Antonia is on the other side.

By the time Robbie is five months old, Antonia has worked up the courage to look at her face in the mirror; to trace the contours of her new body with her hands.

And one ordinary afternoon in April, as the frost slides down from the trees and the earth begins to thaw out, Antonia picks Robbie up when he wakes from his nap and she feels the warm weight of him in her arms. He smiles, seeing her, his mouth stretching across toothless gums. Something in Antonia cracks. I’m sorry, she whispers to the sweet top of his head. And like Lina, so many years ago, I’m ready to be your mamma.

Now Antonia has settled lightly down into motherhood. Her days are punctuated by Robbie’s small cries, by his uncontrollable belly laughter, by his simple, solvable needs.