Rosa ventures into the kitchen. It smells like her mamma—soap and rising yeast, rose from her perfume. She finds fresh loaves of bread and a full fridge. She presses a loaf of Nonna’s bread and a covered casserole dish into Antonia’s hands, and Antonia reluctantly pads down the stairs and back to her own apartment.

Later that night, so late that the deepest secrets can be revealed and the darkness will keep them, Rosa sits on the couch to feed Frankie and weeps. In gratitude, for the child in her arms. In exhaustion, for the work she has done to get the child there. And in a pure, clean sadness, for last time Rosa nursed a child on this couch, Lina was there to help her.

—

In the weeks that follow, Antonia spends every moment she can at the Colicchio apartment. She learns to bathe Frankie, to change and pin her diaper, to rock her. Sofia is more wary, a little cautious about this new creature who commands all the attention in the room. She is torn between protecting her and competing with her. But Sofia, too, falls for Frankie. She learns to make Frankie laugh.

Sometimes Antonia pretends the baby is hers, and she is older, and she lives in a clean glass-walled house next to the sea, and there is always a fire lit and there is music playing from somewhere. She and Sofia and the baby dance and sway and celebrate. They listen to the waves crashing. She thinks maybe she won’t miss her parents so much, when she is older, when she is a mamma herself. She thinks maybe having a baby will divide her life into before and after, will push her past this sad chapter. For while Sofia’s family treats her like one of their own, Antonia still feels a jagged tear in the fabric of herself, and she wants, fervently, to be mended.

—

Children are resilient, and so it is that Antonia appears to be okay relatively soon after her papa’s disappearance, when of course, she is not okay. But the world keeps turning, carrying her along.

All around Sofia and Antonia, the economy rages and sputters like a dying animal. They walk to school via a different route in 1931 and 1932, to avoid the shantytowns that have sprung up in vacant lots, where anything could happen, Rosa says, bouncing Frankie on her hip, handing Sofia a sandwich to take to school. Mamma, nothing will happen, Sofia says, defiant at nine years old, and fearless, and cocooned in certainty that her family will always take care of her, that she will always take care of herself. Antonia at nine years old has a home that echoes when she speaks. The graveyard of their living room, the empty third chair. Anything could happen, Sof, she says, tugging on Sofia’s hand. Come on.