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it?”
    â€œI haven’t told him,” she said, shaking her head again. “It’s complicated.”
    The priest didn’t answer. Josephine gulped at her wine. How foolish she had been to come here. A priest wasn’t going to protect a sinner. She should have tried instead to find Tommy. Even without money or English, it might have been possible. Wasn’t he her soul mate? The man she loved? She was crying now, and Father Leone lifted her chin and looked right at her, just like he’d done that day in the church.
    â€œWhose baby is it?” he said.
    â€œHow could you ask me such a thing?”
    â€œYou cannot get help or forgiveness unless I know the truth, Josephine.”
    Her mind was swimming from wine and early pregnancy, from having lost Tommy, from desperation.
    â€œYou don’t have to tell me who the father is,” the priest said. “But don’t lie to me about the situation.”
    Josephine studied the ruby in the ring the priest wore. It was red and shiny. “Pretty,” she said absently, and touched the ruby with her free hand.
    â€œIt can be arranged,” he said, “for you to have the baby in a hospital. Many women do this now, and if you can convince Vincenzo to send you, then all we do is tell him the baby died. The nuns there will give it to a family who can’t have their own baby. No one will ever know.”
    Josephine was crying harder, pressing her face into Father Leone’s jacket. His collar was scratchy against her skin.
    â€œBut if you don’t tell me the truth . . .” he was saying.
    â€œFine, fine,” Josephine said, “it isn’t Vincenzo’s. I can’t keep this baby; it isn’t his.”
    â€œThis service,” the priest said. “There’s a fee.”
    She looked up, surprised. “I don’t have money.”
    â€œHmmm,” he said. His eyes drifted from her face to her breasts, which had grown even fuller in pregnancy. “Perhaps we can arrange something,” he said. He met her eyes again. “Do you understand?”
    Josephine stood up. “I can’t . . .”
    â€œOf course you can,” he said harshly. “You gave yourself over to me so easily that day. Remember? I asked you and you did it.”
    â€œFor God,” she said, foolishly.
    â€œDo you believe that I am a holy man?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œWhen you offer yourself to me, aren’t you giving yourself to God?”
    Josephine hesitated. “I . . . I don’t know.”
    â€œYou don’t think I take such things for my own pleasure, do you?”
    â€œNo!” she said quickly, even though she didn’t know what she thought.
    â€œI have dedicated my entire life to God, haven’t I?” he asked her. His voice was kind again.
    Out of nowhere, Josephine found herself thinking of the war in Europe. The whole world had gone mad. Isn’t that what everyone was saying? Magdalena from down the hill said that soon they were all going to have to speak German, unless we won the war and killed all the Krauts.
    Father Leone was waiting patiently, smiling his gentle priest smile. What was left to lose? Josephine wondered. She drank her wine and closed her eyes, but she was not yet to the place where the room was spinning, so she poured more into her glass.
    Father Leone laughed. “You like wine, don’t you?” he said. “Enjoy it!”
    â€œI do,” she said softly.
    This glass did it. She lay back on the sofa and the room spun pleasantly. Josephine smiled. Young boys were getting killed every day over there, she thought. For all she knew, the Germans would come here and kill them too. She was going to hell. Father Leone was going to hell. The whole world was coming to an end.
    â€œThe war,” she said, but she was too drunk to put her thoughts into words.
    â€œRemember that God is grateful to you for giving yourself to him,