“Your dad gave me a heads-up,” he replies. His face is strangely empty. Sofia lowers her eyes to the small card. It reads:

Sof: It seems you might like a job. Ask and you shall receive. Love, Papa. PS: Stop tailing Saul.

Sofia looks up at Saul. “He’s going to let me work,” she says. She grins. Sofia Colicchio, lamp-lit and triumphant.

“So it seems,” says Saul. Joey had called him that afternoon. He had said, you know our Sofia isn’t exactly typical. He had sighed, and then said, ruefully, truthfully, she’ll be better at this than either of us, if she decides to be. And then there was quiet in the conversation, and Saul could feel the wind as the door beyond which other possibilities, other jobs, other lifestyles, existed slammed shut. No California, no Upper West Side. No painter, no pediatrician. So now Saul is staring down the barrel of the rest of his life. He is mourning something that would never have happened.

In Europe, Russian and American soldiers are firing their guns into the air in celebration. Nazi officers are slipping cyanide pills into the hands of their wives and loved ones. His mother is a breathing skeleton somewhere, or a pile of ash, and Saul has become unrecognizable to her. How will they find each other?

“You’re mad,” says Sofia. She doesn’t want Saul to ruin this for her. She is almost angry. But there is also an insistent nagging, a genuine concern for Saul, whose shoulders are slumped in defeat.

Saul sits up and switches off the radio and lowers his face to his hands.

“Saul, what?” asks Sofia. She crosses the room and brings her hands to cover his. In her chest there is a small struggling bird that would have been elation and instead is a complicated disappointment.

“I’m not mad,” says Saul.

“Okay, so?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Try,” says Sofia, and it is a command.

“Well,” says Saul. “I came here, and I was so alone. I’ve never been so alone. But then this job—it found me. And you—you found me. And the war was this monster in the background, this thing I was escaping. And then suddenly instead of being alone I was taking care of you, and Julia, and I was doing this job, and I was fighting against the war with everyone I picked up. And I didn’t have time to think about everything I had given up, everything that had changed. It seemed to matter a little less what I had lost.” Saul takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. Sofia is silent. The silence presses down.