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with condensation. Mutti sat down across from her, her blue eyes and the soft lines of her face unnaturally hard, her lips pressed together. She was wearing her house apron over a nut-brown dress, a dress normally reserved for work at the Bauermans’. Christine watched her mother fold her calloused, oven-scarred hands on the table in front of her, and felt beads of perspiration spring out on her forehead.
    “We will no longer be working for the Bauermans,” Mutti said, an uncharacteristic tremor in her voice.
    Christine stiffened. “What? Why?”
    “There are new laws,” Mutti continued. “One of the laws forbids German women to work for Jewish families.”
    For a fraction of a second, Christine relaxed, realizing that the news had nothing to do with her and Isaac. Then she remembered the posters outside.
    “Is that what those ridiculous posters say?” she said. “I’m not going to let some stupid law tell me where I can or can’t work!” She stood, ready to bolt, but Mutti caught her wrist and held it.
    “Christine, listen to me. We can’t go to the Bauermans’. It’s against the law. It’s dangerous.”
    “I need to talk to Isaac,” Christine said, pulling away and heading toward the door.
    “Nein!” her mother shouted. “I forbid it.”
    Christine wasn’t sure if it was the odd trace of fear or the determination in her mother’s voice, but something made her stop.
    “Herr Bauerman has been forced to abandon his office in town,” her mother continued, her tone softer now. “He’s no longer allowed to practice law. If you’re caught going over there, you’ll be arrested. The Gestapo knows we work there.”
    Christine said nothing. She just stood there, willing it not to be true. Her mother got up and put her hands on Christine’s shoulders.
    “Christine, look at me,” she said, her eyes watery but stern. “One of the new laws also forbids any relationships between Germans and Jews. I know you care for Isaac, but you have to stay away from him.”
    “But he’s not really Jewish!”
    “It wouldn’t matter to me even if he was. But it matters to the Nazis, and they’re the ones making the laws. We have to do as we’re told. I have permission to go there now, one last time, to pick up our pay. We’ll need the money. But you’re not going with me, do you understand?”
    Christine lowered her head, covering her flooding eyes with her hands. How could this be happening? Everything had been so perfect. She thought of Kate and Stefan, happy and oblivious to all that had changed, their only concern Kate’s overprotective mother. And then she had an idea. She wiped her eyes and looked at her mother.
    “Will you take a note to Isaac for me?”
    Mutti pressed her lips together, her forehead constricting further. After a long moment, she reached up to brush Christine’s hair from her forehead.
    “I suppose that won’t hurt,” she said. “Write the note quickly now, I don’t have much time. But until things are back as they should be, you’re not to see him.” Christine started to turn, but her mother held her arm. “You’re not to see him. Do you understand?”
    “ Ja, Mutti,” Christine said.
    “Hurry now.”
    Christine ran upstairs to her bedroom and closed the door. A few days earlier, she’d decorated the multipaned window in her room with fall leaves, a different species glued to each thick square of swirled glass: gold beechnut, yellow oak, red maple, and orange hickory. It all seemed so childish now. Now, the sparse room reflected the way she felt, bone-cold and empty as a cave, the cool drafts of the coming winter already making their way through the invisible crevices in the fieldstone and mortar walls and the undetectable cracks in the thick, dry timber. A pine armoire, her narrow bed, and a wooden desk and chair were the only furniture, and the threadbare rug on the tiled floor did little to ward off the chill.
    She took Isaac’s stone out of her pocket and held it in a