“Tired of life in the castle?” Lotte said with a smirk when Benita first stepped off the train.

Gertrud was kinder. “Mother would be happy that you came back.”

But unfortunately Benita was staying with Lotte, whose children had already left home. Her daughter had married the local butcher, and her son was studying in Braunschweig to become a government clerk. The Grubers (now Freiholzes, thanks to Lotte’s unpleasant husband, Gephardt) were moving up in the world. Benita found this a good joke. But there was no one to share it with.

The beginning of December marked three months since Benita had been back. Lotte, who was always prickly, was now downright peevish. Whether this was because of Benita’s continued presence or Gephardt’s prolonged absence was impossible to know. Gephardt had gone south to see his ailing mother shortly after Benita’s arrival, and for the last two weeks Lotte had eagerly awaited his return. Maybe the delay brought to mind the long years she had spent raising children while he did God knows what in a Siberian labor camp. Or maybe the constant effort of preparing a hot dinner in expectation set her on edge. Benita slunk around the house like a person trying not to wake a sleeping baby. But even so, she managed to get on Lotte’s nerves.

“Benita,” Lotte said when Benita let herself into the cottage one afternoon, “have you thought about applying for a job at Weseman’s?”

Benita had not even unwrapped her scarf.

Weseman’s had opened recently—a narrow grocery with no windows and a heavy smell of cigarette smoke, long shelves of canned and packaged goods. These were not in high demand in Frühlinghausen, where almost everyone still grew their own produce, canned their own fruit, and bought their meat from the butcher. Benita had set foot inside the place exactly once.

“Lotte, let poor Benita catch her breath,” Gertrud chided from the table where she sat cracking nuts for Christmas cookies.

“Isn’t that what she was just doing? Strolling around in the fresh air?”

“It’s all right,” Benita said, shedding her coat. She knew better than to bristle at Lotte’s barbs. “Are they looking for someone?”

“I should think so—I heard Trude complaining about the long hours—dawn till dusk and no one to fill in besides her and Horst. Apparently she never sees him anymore—though I don’t know if that’s really much to complain about.” Lotte slipped into an imitation of a man with a stiff back and pained face. Lotte had once been the class cutup, a brash, big-boned, and funny girl everyone was slightly afraid of, and she maintained a little of this demeanor as an adult.

“Lot-te,” Gertrud chided. “Horst is a nice man.”

“Who said he wasn’t?” Lotte cracked a walnut with particular violence.

She and Gertrud had their own way of communicating—a kind of closeness achieved through years of living side by side, sharing the profound and the mundane. Benita existed entirely outside its confines, a subject of their conversation rather than a participant. “Well, he is nice,” Gertrud said to Benita. “It’s true.”