At six, Tommy Fianzo and his wife carry the platters of food into the room. Bellissima, the guests cheer. They welcome the bowl of pasta, the falling apart lamb, the cold plates of beans and sliced squid drenched in olive oil, the slippery roasted red peppers. The guests kiss their fingers. They beam. Moltissime grazie, they moan. I have never been so full. I have never seen food so beautiful.

For the most part, Sofia and Antonia are ignored: left to their own devices, they play precarious games of tag, racing around the table and between the legs and gesturing elbows of adults. The house fills with pipe tobacco and ladies’ perfume; the chaos is friendly, familiar, the burbling high point of a wave. Eventually, their parents fill their plates.

On the way home, Sofia and Antonia are half-asleep, eyes lowered, limbs heavy. Manhattan sparkles through the car windows as they flash over the Brooklyn Bridge. And if they are lucky, Antonia’s papa will put a hand to each of their backs and sing to them, low and soft songs that he remembers from his own mamma, from the island where he grew up. He tells them about the red-hot dirt, the whitewashed ancient church, the fragrant shade of gnarled lemon trees, the old woman with long and tangled hair who lived in a hut overlooking the sea.

When they get home, the Colicchios and the Russos unfurl from the car and the grown-ups kiss one another before they go into their respective apartments. Carlo carries Antonia upstairs and Joey takes Sofia by the hand and Rosa and Lina share a lingering look at one another, at their husbands, at their girls.

Papa, Antonia says, before she drifts into solid sleep, you would rather be here all the time instead of going to work, wouldn’t you. It is not a question. Cara mia, Carlo whispers. Of course.

In the other room, Lina Russo always knows when Carlo gives this answer. She knows when Carlo eases their daughter into sleep. Cara mia, and Lina is weighted down at last, balanced and calm. Of course.

On Sundays after Sofia is asleep Rosa stands still in her living room and surveys her territory. Cara mia, she thinks. Her sleeping daughter, who wants for nothing. Her husband with his raised eyebrows, waiting for her to decide the room can be abandoned for morning. Of course.

—

The next morning Sofia will wake in her bed, and Antonia will wake in hers. The garbage carts come on Monday morning and if the trashmen look up, they sometimes see, in adjoining buildings on a small side street in Red Hook, two little girls in nightgowns, both staring out of their windows as a new week begins.

Chapter 3

The summer when Sofia and Antonia are seven, their parents decide they have had enough of the punishing heat, and plan a beach trip.