Kanella’s kourabiedes were far better than those sold in Lefkada town’s best bakeries. Hers crumbled the moment I bit into them, their almond pieces toasted and chopped fine as sand, their icing sugar freshly dusted and never caked.

Who is Kanella? the butcher would have asked, if I had shared with him my thoughts.

She is my family’s cook and the woman who wore my mother’s clothes and now mine, as if I too were dead, I would have had to answer.

So instead I smiled and thanked him. I set the box aside, and I sat down next to him on the settee.

The Angels of Cerigo returned to me, though now they all had the throaty voice of Sióra Gazi. They told me to grab on to the meat man’s hands and place them around my waist. I did. Now, jump up as if you have changed your mind and are ashamed. I did. Turn your back to him. I did. Tell him to leave you and pause before adding “for now.” I did.

The butcher was back early the next morning, without Old Iota having placed an order. He arrived with a chunk of lamb shoulder and a large box of pasteli, my favorite of the confections. The Angels were adamant that I should blush when I see him, so I rubbed my cheeks with my fingertips before he was shown into the house.

That was all it took, Elesa.

The butcher’s hands around my waist a few more times, and I began assembling the pieces of my trousseau. When the silks for my dresses were more costly than I had anticipated, the butcher wrote to Charles to say that the landlord had raised the rent on the house. When a linen bonnet was more to my taste than a straw one, the butcher said that he would write again for additional funds. When Charles did not arrange for the requested amount to be delivered, the butcher made up the difference with his own meat money.

God gives, and God takes.

My trousseau was just completed, when Giorgio went to Him.

Elesa, you may begin to write again. Patricio should know what happened after my blessed one left this world.

I took apart one of my linen nightdresses to swaddle Giorgio’s body for burial. In the eternal darkness, he could touch the white silk-thread bees and know that beauty surrounds him still.

When the butcher wrote to Charles of Giorgio’s passing, Charles wrote back to inquire about Patricio’s health. He did not ask about mine. The household funds, nearly depleted by the quince-orchard burial, were not replenished, as the butcher had requested.

Geranium Leaves made the deliveries to the house again. The butcher added a sum of his own money to my weekly allotment from Charles. I would like to believe that the butcher did so out of compassion for the loss of my blessed one.