Nothing ever happened in winter, and Sarah endured that nothing in a tangle of longing. Milos had said he’d return after Easter, and Easter had come to Corfu with trumpets blared by marching parades and clay pots thrown from balconies amid raucous applause.

After Easter, Sarah took to the sea every day. Milos had promised that, when he returned, he would wrap a scarf in the branches of the olive tree under which they used to sit. But slowly the snowcapped mountains of neighboring Albania melted to green, and sunlight stretched the days, and still no scarf.

Then the island rolled out its carpet of flowers in bloom, and Sarah’s favorite holiday, Pesach, came and went. Thirty members of her extended family gathered for the Seder, to read in Hebrew from the Haggadah. Sarah’s mother made her famous panada beef broth soup with matzah pieces—and yet no scarf in sight.

One late afternoon in mid-April, Sarah buttoned her pale-blue overcoat and paused at her father’s sewing machine. It was siesta time but he’d already conducted his afternoon snooze, the apartment rumbling with his snores. Now he bent over, adding darts to a shirt with the familiar spools of thread jumbled at his side, stray strands littering the scuffed wooden floor.

He did most of his work at his shop down below but occasionally brought a project home. He had been teaching Sarah to sew since she was child, and she loved to watch him immersed in a garment, his tongue stuck out in concentration as he formed each stitch, the perfect distance from the ones before and after. Customers raved about the precision of his stitches and came from far and wide for his craftsmanship.

“Where are you off to, Sarah mou?” he asked.

“To do Yanni’s ironing.” It was truly her plan, but she’d omitted the indirect route to the sea she’d take to get there.

“Yanni likes even his underwear ironed, eh?”

“I don’t mind.”

“I am proud of you, chriso mou.”

“I’ll see you later.” Sarah kissed his scratchy cheek.

“Your ears will get cold. Put a hat on.”

“It’s not that cold, Baba. And it will ruin my hair.” She’d wrangled it in place, and it was almost even obeying. A hat would just smush it.

“Put a hat on, Sarah,” her father said again, without looking up. “We may not have money for much, but for a hat to keep your ears warm, yes we do.”