Rosa and Mado had settled into a rhythm. Tonight, they left the office together at dusk, the sky already dimmed to a flat gray that makes the streetlamps seem indecently bright. Mado locks the door with care, testing the handle once, twice, before turning away. Rosa watches the motion and files it where she keeps other useful habits.

“You live far?” Rosa asks.

“Far enough,” Mado says. “Not far to walk.”

They set off at Mado’s pace, which is steady and unapologetic. Her cane taps against the pavement, a sound that threads itself into the city’s rhythm—boots, carts, voices, the distant rumble of a truck she does not look at. Rosa finds herself matching the pace without thinking. She realizes, with a faint start, that this is the first time since Tuscany that she has walked beside someone without scanning ahead for danger every few steps.

Mado’s building is narrow and older than the office by a century at least. The stairwell smells of damp tobacco and mold. Mado takes the stairs slowly, one hand on the rail, the other on the cane, pausing once on the landing. She does not apologize. Rosa does not offer help.

The apartment is small but carefully kept. There is a table by the window, two chairs that do not match, a narrow bed folded up against the wall. A shelf of books runs the length of one side—manuals, ledgers, a few novels with cracked spines. The kitchen is barely a kitchen at all, just a counter, a small stove, and a cupboard whose door hangs slightly askew.

“You can sit,” Mado says, hanging her coat. “Or you can cut bread. Whichever makes you feel more useful.”

Rosa smiles and reaches for the bread. It is dense and a little stale, but solid. Hearty. She slices it carefully, listening to Mado move about the room behind her—metal clinking, a pan being set down, the hiss of a flame.

They eat at the small table, knees nearly touching. The soup is thin but hot, flavored with garlic and something sharp Rosa can’t place. Mado pours a little wine into chipped cups and raises hers briefly, not in a toast, just an acknowledgment.

Outside, footsteps pass, a voice laughs too loudly, then fades. Rosa realizes she is listening less carefully than she has been, and that the room feels—if not safe—then contained.

“You don’t eat like someone who’s alone,” Mado says after a moment.

Rosa looks up. “What does that mean?”

“You don’t rush. You don’t hoard.”

“I suppose I haven’t learned yet.”

Mado’s gaze is steady, not prying. “You will,” she says. “Or you’ll refuse. That’s also a skill.”

After supper, Mado clears the table and brings out a small tin of cigarettes. She offers one. Rosa hesitates, then takes it. Mado lights it for her without ceremony. They sit by the window, smoke drifting upward. From here, the street looks almost ordinary. A man pushes a bicycle. A woman leans out a window to shake a rug. The illusion is nearly convincing.

“You write letters,” Mado says.

Rosa stiffens slightly. “How did you—”

“Ink on your fingers,” Mado says, lifting her own hand. “And the way you watch the post.”

Rosa exhales. “Yes.”

“Do you get answers?”

“Sometimes.”

Mado nods, as if that answers everything. “Sometimes is good. Who is it you write to?”

Rosa stills. “My colleague. Viola.” Then, almost too quickly: “She had polio in childhood. I cared for her.”

Mado considers her for a second, watching, waiting. For a second Rosa’s stomach lurches, thinking she has said the wrong thing, said too much, forced Viola into tens of boxes too small for her. The lie feels wrong, disrespectful without her there to smirk at, to squeeze her shoulder as if reaffirming that the character she was playing was just that.

Rosa’s body does something then, tenses and lurches all at once, and Mado’s face changes slightly, slowly. Her face softens, and the lines around her face begin to settle into something resembling a smile. Rosa adjusts. Not accusatory. Conspiratorial.

The invitation sits between them as she tries to gather her words.

Tell me about her, then.

There is a knock at the door. Rosa’s body reacts before her mind does, every muscle tightening. Mado notices and raises a hand—not to calm her, but to signal quiet.

She moves to the door, checks the latch, opens it a fraction. A boy stands outside, no more than sixteen, a satchel slung over his shoulder. He hands Mado a folded piece of paper without a word and leaves.

Mado closes the door and locks it. She does not open the paper immediately.

“Is that—” Rosa begins.

“Work,” Mado says. She tucks it into her jacket pocket. “Not tonight.”

Rosa watches her carefully now, seeing the room differently; the ledgers, the careful order, the absence of anything decorative. A place designed to be left quickly, if needed.

“You don’t have to stay,” Mado says. “But you can.”

“I’d like to,” Rosa says. The words surprise her with their certainty.

They talk, then, about smaller things. About the office, the man who speaks too loudly, the woman who sharpens her pencils obsessively. About food, about the weather turning. Mado tells a story about a stamp that once traveled across three borders without anyone noticing. Rosa listens, absorbing not just the story but the way Mado tells it - what she leaves out, where she pauses.

At some point, the conversation slows. The cigarettes burn down to their ends.

Rosa stands to leave, pausing at the door, looking at a photo of a soldier, a young boy’s portrait. She stares for a second, before realisation catches up with her, and she turns away as if it has burned.

Mado laughs softly as she stands. “I tell people he is my brother. He is gone all the same.”

She hands Rosa a small bundle wrapped in paper.

“For tomorrow,” she says. “Bread, a little cheese. You’ll forget otherwise.”

“Thank you,” Rosa says. The words feel inadequate, but true.

“There are others,” Mado says, as she turns the latch. “People who wait together. It helps some of them. It might help you.”

Rosa thinks of letters, of silence, of stamps that promise safety. “I’d like that.”

“Good,” Mado says. “We’ll see.”

On the stairs, Rosa descends slowly, aware of her body again, of the city pressing in. But something has shifted. Rosa pulls her coat tighter and walks on, carrying the taste of garlic, the weight of paper, and the knowledge that tonight, at least, someone knows where she is. The fear is still there, sharp and familiar—but now it shares space with something else.

Connection, she thinks. Perhaps simply company.