“Can I hold her? Please?” Benita asked.

Ania nodded.

The nurse laid the baby in Benita’s arms.

“You’re so lucky,” she said, her eyes filling. “She’s beautiful! And you can enjoy her. No wars and bombs to protect her from, and all this . . .” She hesitated, then landed on the word: “Safety. Do you know, when Martin was a baby I was so worried he would be crushed in a bombing that I turned our icebox into a crib. I thought it would save him if the ceiling caved in—as if an icebox would have protected him!” She shifted the baby, who made a faint purring sound. “I was such a child.”

“We were all children.” Ania sighed.

“I didn’t intend to disrespect Connie, you know,” Benita announced with sudden ferocity. “If I had married Herr Muller, it would not have harmed Connie’s memory.”

“If you had—?” Ania repeated.

“We were engaged.” Benita sat back. “I thought Marianne told you.” She looked at the ceiling, and tears slid down her cheeks. How seamlessly she cried, as if she went through life filled to the brim.

Ania shook her head.

“Marianne didn’t approve.”

It required no more explanation. Benita’s will had never been a match for Marianne’s.

“So you have decided not to . . . ?” Ania ventured.

“Decided!” Benita snapped and stood up, still holding the baby. She went to the window and then turned back. “I decided nothing. But Marianne told Franz she was against it and he—it doesn’t matter. I was stupid to imagine I could be happy again.

“It’s not why I came anyway.” She adjusted the baby and wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “I came to say good-bye. After we take the boys to Salem, I am going home to Frühlinghausen.”

“To Frühlinghausen?” Ania repeated. This surprised her as much as anything else Benita had said. “To take care of your sister?”

Benita tried to smile at the baby in her arms. “It’s where I belong.”

Ania stared. Benita had always hated the town where she was born. “What does Marianne say about this?”

“She doesn’t know.”

Ania regarded this woman she knew so well and yet not at all. Their lives had become entwined during such a strange time—without context, severed from the past, before the future. A time dictated by basic needs. What did they really know of each other?

“Are you sure?” she asked, the words sounding obtuse even to her own ears.

The baby’s little hand clasped and unclasped against Benita’s neck.

“Nothing is sure, is it?” Benita said, almost dreamily. “That’s what Marianne doesn’t understand.”

The baby began to cry.

“Here.” Benita bent and placed her in Ania’s arms.

The nurse appeared in the doorway. “Do you want to feed her, Frau Kellerman? Or should I give her the bottle?”

“Feed her,” Benita said to Ania with sudden surprising authority. “Take care of her. That is the most important thing.”

“Auf Wiedersehen.” She leaned down to kiss Ania’s cheek.