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here even after your death. I swallow back my indignation and listen to the voices in the kitchen below. Rosa-Maria’s grumbling mixes with Lucia’s singsong, which I can hear clearly even though the kitchen, part of the main building, is separated from the annex by thick stone walls. I tiptoe down the stairs, skipping the next-to-last one with the squeaky board. The kitchen door is slightly open.
    “Shouldn’t we wake him? He always gets upset when we let him sleep in.”
    “I don’t care if it makes him mad as hell. He needs his sleep.”
    “He looked horrible when I last saw him. Ashen.”
    “It’s a miracle he hasn’t collapsed. The worries about the farm, Nonna’s death, the lost urn—and now this last will. Did you hear the mayor’s wife? The village really has something to gossip about now. What in the world did Nonna think she was doing?”
    “It’s not just Fabrizio,” Lucia says. “Marco hasn’t said one word since we heard the testament, and he’s been jogging around the outer apricot field for two hours.”
    “What can you do? They can rant and rave and run around, but she’s still dead. And she left more heartache than is good for all of us.”
    I picture them: Rosa-Maria crossing herself and Lucia biting her lips. I shuffle my feet outside the door, clear my throat, and count to three. When I enter the kitchen, I don’t wait for them to answer my hoarse “Ciao,” but bend down to fetch the pasta maker from under the stove. “Is the pasta dough ready?”
    Lucia, her back to me, is shredding Parmesan powerfully, putting her entire body into it. She’s small but as strong as a farmworker. She needs every ounce of it—after all, the poor thing is married to my brother. Rosa-Maria doesn’t look up from the rabbit-and-apricot stew.
    “Of course the dough’s ready.” She points with her chin to the counter near the window. I bite back a smile. Ever since I can remember, the trattoria has been closed Mondays, and the extended family gathers to cook and eat together. It seems that, despite the funeral, no one is prepared to give up this tradition—a comforting thought.
    I set the pasta roller next to the bowl of dough. Nobody remembers who came up with the Monday dinner menu, but it never changes. Before the main course, there’s a pasta dish, the primo piatto . Foes of carbohydrates—non-Italians—try to leave it out, but it’s impossible to imagine or justify the meal without pasta. For us Italians, good pasta is far more than just a starchy side dish. It embodies what we mean when we talk about home .
    I reach for an onion and a knife. Even though the kitchen is the women’s realm, one of my Monday tasks is making the pasta—another custom nobody is giving up. Rosa-Maria has already put out the ground meat, carrots, tomatoes, and olive oil. A good ragù doesn’t have many ingredients, but they must be fresh and top quality. Besides that, all you need is concentration, some skill, and time. Especially time. Evading Lucia’s gaze, I start to cut the onion. We’ll talk later, and I’m not looking forward to it.
     
    Hanna
     
    I want to turn on my heels and get out of here. I made it this far, but let’s be serious. It’s impossible to right everything that’s gone wrong in my life recently. So why am I risking a bloody nose when I could get away with just a slightly blackened eye?
    Best-case scenario: the magazine and Camini’s lawyer settle, and all I lose is my job. Every fourteenth person in Germany goes through that. My apartment is too big for one person anyway; I don’t even have to pack, since I never unpacked; and until I find another job in my field, I could work at Sabine’s breakfast café. It wouldn’t be the end of the world.
    So instead of walking up the driveway like a humble pilgrim, I could simply drop the grandmother into the mail at the local post office, and Ernesto could deliver—
    Whoa! I jump, startled.
    Less than two feet away, a chicken is looking