Iona’s last born died within moments of opening his eyes and was not baptized before he took his last breath. Iona’s husband left her and the body of this baby, who would always be lonely in Purgatory while his four elder brothers had one another’s company in the Kingdom of Heaven, at the front door of her father’s house. That was when Iona first met the quince farmer with the small graves hidden among his trees.

At the age of twenty-two, Iona had nothing. Upon her return to Lefkada town, her neighbors gave her a new name and a new age. Her cheeks caved. Her breasts sagged. Her hair streaked with white. The black dresses of widows became her habit, and Old Iota became her name.

When Charles hired Old Iota, she was twenty-eight, and I was twenty-six.

It was the sixteen-year-old Iona whom I thought of whenever I found myself staring at her. I searched her forehead, creased like a slept-in bedsheet, her hands knobbed and full of bones, and I wondered if she ever felt graced by her husband, whether sweetness ever spread from Iona’s tongue down to the rest of her as well. Whenever I thought about the animal that she once was, I knew that I was missing Charles, not with my heart.

I could not write to my husband of my thoughts for him, so I saved them for Holy Confession at the Church of Santa Paraskevi, where the Reverend Father would listen to my words until he stifled a moan.

Afterward, I intoned the Prayer of Repentance. Its last line, “Teach me both to desire and to do only what pleases You,” was an honest plea. Then I closed my eyes and waited. In the darkness, the body I saw was not Charles’s and certainly not the Reverend Father’s, whose long beard was a bib for rusk crumbs and droplets of red wine. I saw the Son of God, His limbs gilded, His hair long and woman-like, His wounds displayed and unashamed. I had worshipped at His nailed feet since I was a young girl, and it was His body that I saw first among men. Without the image of the Crucifixion, how would I have known of a man’s muscled thighs, his taut abdomen, and the mystery behind the cloth?

Elesa, you hesitated at “abdomen.” Did your mother—may she rest in peace—never teach you this word in Venetian? You can write it down in English, if you need. Patricio will know what it means one day. Patricio will read it and not blush. Nor will God. Do you think that He will deny me the Kingdom of Heaven? You have heard only the beginning of my story. God has other reasons to deny me, my dear.

Pick up the pen. We are too far on the Irish Sea for you to change your mind now. An arrangement is an arrangement.

Did you make certain to bring enough nibs and bottles of ink, as I had asked? It is important that you write my every word. Patricio, I know, will want to find me one day, and I want him to know where to begin.