I also learned how to laugh out loud, which the Sióra said could be a woman’s charm but must be used sparingly. Rein it in, allow it to slip forth at the last moment, like the skin beneath a corset.

She assured me that with these gestures, learned and practiced, my body would be understood by any man.

“Any man?” I repeated. A man other than Charles was a thought that had not entered my head.

“Yes, Rosa, any man,” the Sióra replied. “Your body is your way out or your way in. For now, your unborn child has made that decision for you, but you must not forget that Charles is but one man. If you believe him to be the one and only—only God is the One and Only, Rosa—then your body belongs to him. If you believe him to be one of any, then your body remains your own.

“A woman’s body is God’s creation,” the Sióra continued. “Men will try to shame you with the story of Eve,” she warned, “and tell you that as Eve’s daughter you have sinned. These are words spoken by men who are afraid or who covet what they do not possess. There are women who will say these words to you as well, and they do so for the same reasons, Rosa.”

I could not write down the Sióra’s words as you could, Elesa. I committed them to memory instead. No man had to teach me that skill nor could he keep it from me. Memory belongs to us all, man or woman. We are all the children of God, the Sióra said. We are all beloved in His eyes, she assured me.

When Charles and I arrived in Lefkada town, he reported to the Fort of Santa Maura, and I stayed in a rented room above a butcher shop near the Central Square. The butcher and the butcher’s wife were the first Lefkadans whom I would meet. He spoke Venetian, albeit in a form that was a bit unusual to my ears, and Romaic, and she only the latter. We understood one another. I understood them so well that I soon despised them both. The room came with two meals a day, brought up by the wife. She smelled of flowers that had sat in a vase for too long or rather she smelled of the murky water that these flowers sat in. Her husband carried with him the odor of unwashed feet and rising yeast. Each of their five children had their own scent as well. I had not met them, but I could smell them whenever they came into their father’s shop. There was Horse Dung, Warm Milk, Fish Guts, Burnt Olive Wood, and Geranium Leaves.

My blessed first did that to me. Patricio, you in turn would do the same. My blessed third, within me now, has cursed me of late with the opposite, a nose that cannot even smell the sea that surrounds us.

When you and I first met, Elesa, your mourning dress had carried with it your mother’s scent. I knew that the garment must have belonged to her. I wondered whether the lavender water that clung to it soothed you as much as it soothed me.