The cold had teeth this morning. Not the polite nip of early spring—the kind that remembered February and refused to let go. I pulled my coat tighter, the wool scratchy against my neck, and watched the streetlamp flicker overhead. Wet cobbles gleamed like oiled leather, and the diesel smell hung low, mixing with the faint sweetness of something baking from a nearby apartment block.

Irina stood beside me, her black dress severe against the grey morning, the blue rosary I'd made her catching the lamplight. She'd insisted on coming. "You don't stand on street corners alone anymore," she'd said, and there was something in her voice I didn't argue with.

The basket hung heavy on my arm. Twenty-three rosaries, each one threaded with my prayers, each decade a Hail Mary whispered into silver wire and glass beads. My fingers were still raw from the work, the tips callused in ways they'd never been before—not from scrubbing floors or spreading thighs, but from making something holy.

They came in twos and threes at first. The grandmother with her henna-scarved head, the one who'd knelt closest to me last Thursday, her lips moving soundlessly through the Our Father. She had her daughter with her today—a woman my age with the same sharp cheekbones, the same watchful eyes. The daughter held no beads. She held her mother's elbow like she was the one keeping the old woman upright, but I saw the way her gaze swept the corner, cataloging exits.

I knew that look. I'd worn it myself.

The teenager came next, the one with the acne and the too-big jacket. He'd brought his sister—younger, maybe fourteen, with the same nervous energy but softer, less armored. She clutched a set of beads I hadn't made. Plastic ones, the kind you'd buy at a church gift shop. But she held them like they were made of gold.

Then the man with the blue rosary. The one who'd grinned at me last week like I'd handed him a winning lottery ticket instead of a string of beads. He was grinning wider now, practically bouncing on his heels as he introduced his neighbor—a heavyset man with a grey beard and a limp, already holding beads of his own.

"He found them in his wife's drawer," the blue-rosary man said, clapping the neighbor on the shoulder. "She passed two years ago. He didn't know what to do with them."

The neighbor—Yuri, he said his name was Yuri—looked at me with wet eyes. "I thought maybe... if I came here, she'd..." He trailed off, unable to finish.

I reached out and took his hand. It was rough, callused from work I didn't ask about. "She's here," I said. "She's been here the whole time."

His grip tightened. He didn't let go until Father Alexei arrived.

The priest walked up the street with his worn leather Bible under his arm, his cassock dark against the grey buildings. He moved like a man who'd learned patience the hard way—slow, deliberate, each step placing him exactly where he meant to be. When he saw the crowd, he stopped.

I watched him count. Nine had become twenty. Twenty faces turned toward him, some familiar, some new, all waiting.

"Well," Father Alexei said, and his voice cracked on the word. "Well."

He opened his Bible to a page I didn't recognize, the paper thin and soft from years of turning. His finger traced the verses, and when he spoke, his voice carried over the murmur of the crowd, over the distant growl of traffic, over the hiss of a bus braking at the corner.

"'The Lord is my shepherd,'" he read, "'I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.'"

I knew the psalm. Everyone knew the psalm. But standing on that frozen corner, with twenty faces turned toward me like flowers toward the sun, the words landed differently. They settled into my chest like warm stones, heavy and solid and real.

"'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,'" Father Alexei continued, "'I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.'"

His eyes found mine over the tops of the pages. "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over."

My cup runneth over. I thought of the brothel, of the chandeliers that had watched me spread my legs for strangers. I thought of the Don's satisfied smile, of Mama Rosa's clipped affection, of Luca's hands on my skin as he painted me like a canvas. I thought of the cold room in Milan where I'd learned to kneel, and the colder one in Moscow where I'd learned to pray.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.

The twins rolled against my ribs, a slow, insistent pressure that took my breath away. I placed my hand on my belly and felt them move, felt the impossible fact of them—two lives growing inside a body that had once belonged to a man named Carter, a body that had been bought and sold and trained and used, a body that was somehow, impossibly, becoming a vessel for something holy.

Father Alexei closed the Bible. The sound was soft, but it seemed to echo off the buildings around us.

"We'll begin with the first decade of the Joyful Mysteries," he said. "The Annunciation."

Twenty people knelt on the frozen asphalt. I heard the grandmother's knees crack as she lowered herself down, heard her daughter hiss a protest, heard the old woman wave it away with a sharp word in Russian I didn't catch. The teenager helped his sister kneel, his hand on her shoulder, and she looked up at him with an adoration that made my throat tight.

I knelt too. The cold bit through my stockings, through the thin fabric of my dress, into the bones of my knees. It was the same cold I'd felt last Thursday, the same cold that had seeped into me while I'd led nine strangers in prayer. But today there were twenty. Today the garden I'd planted was spreading.

Irina knelt beside me. I hadn't asked her to. She'd simply lowered herself to the ground with the same dignity she brought to everything, her black dress pooling around her, the blue rosary sliding through her fingers.

"Hail Mary, full of grace," Father Alexei began, and twenty voices answered.

"The Lord is with thee."

"Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."

The words moved through me like a current. I felt them in my chest, in my throat, in the hollow place behind my ribs where Carter used to live. Each Hail Mary was a small death, a letting go of something I hadn't known I was holding. Each decade was a rebirth.

The grandmother's voice was strong and clear, cutting through the morning air like a bell. The teenager's cracked on the high notes, still finding its register. The daughter of the grandmother was silent, her lips moving but no sound coming out, her eyes fixed on the ground like she was afraid of what she might see if she looked up.

I knew that fear. I'd lived inside it for months.

By the third decade, the cold had stopped mattering. By the fourth, I'd stopped feeling my knees altogether. By the fifth, I was somewhere else entirely—not on a street corner in Moscow, but in a place that existed outside of time, where the only thing that mattered was the rhythm of the words and the press of the beads against my fingers.

"Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy," Father Alexei intoned, and the crowd followed him into the closing prayer, their voices rising and falling like waves.

When we rose, my legs were stiff and my joints ached. The grandmother's daughter helped her mother up with a gentleness that surprised me, and the old woman patted her daughter's cheek with a weathered hand.

"You see?" the grandmother said, not to her daughter but to the air, to the sky, to anyone who would listen. "You see what happens when you open your heart?"

The daughter didn't answer. But she didn't look away, either.

Father Alexei tucked his Bible under his arm and turned to face the crowd. His face was flushed with cold and something else—something that looked almost like joy.

"My friends," he said, and his voice carried, even though he wasn't shouting. "Two days from now, we celebrate the Easter Vigil. The holiest night of the year. The night when we remember that death does not have the final word."

He paused. His eyes found mine.

"And on that night, Isabella will be baptized into the Church."

The words hit me like a physical blow. I staggered, actually staggered, and Irina's hand caught my elbow, steadying me.

He hadn't told me. He hadn't warned me. He'd simply... announced it. To twenty strangers on a street corner in Moscow.

The grandmother's hand found mine. Her skin was papery and warm, and her grip was surprisingly strong.

"Baptized," she repeated, and the word sounded like a blessing and a promise all at once. "Tonight, you are one of us. On Saturday, you will be one of His."

I opened my mouth to correct her—it wasn't tonight, it was two days from now—but the words died in my throat. Because she was right. In the way that mattered, in the way that counted, I was already one of them. I'd been one of them since the first Thursday, since the first rosary, since the first stranger had knelt beside me on the frozen ground.

The teenager stepped forward. He was taller than I'd realized, all awkward angles and too-long limbs, and he held his sister's hand like it was the only thing keeping him anchored.

"We'll be there," he said. "We'll all be there."

He looked at the crowd, at the faces that had become familiar over the past weeks, and I saw something pass between them—an agreement, a promise, a covenant that had nothing to do with words.

The man with the blue rosary nodded. "I'll bring my wife. She's been asking about you."

Yuri, the neighbor with the grey beard, clutched his wife's beads to his chest. "I'll be there," he said. "I'll be there for her."

One by one, they spoke. The grandmother promised to bring her entire building. The teenager promised to bring his mother, who was sick and couldn't leave the house but would watch through the window. A woman I didn't recognize—thin, with dark circles under her eyes—promised to bring her son, who'd been asking questions about God since his father died.

Twenty voices murmured assent. Twenty faces turned toward me with something that looked like hope.

The twins rolled against my ribs, a slow, insistent pressure that made me catch my breath. I placed my hand on my belly, feeling them move, feeling the impossible weight of them—two lives growing inside me, two souls who would be born into this world of frozen corners and empty baskets, of strangers who gathered in the dark to learn the names of mysteries.

But they would also be born into a world where their mother had planted a garden on a street corner in Moscow—and watched it bloom into something she'd never dared to imagine.

Father Alexei stepped close to me, his voice low enough that only I could hear. "I should have warned you," he said. "I wanted it to be a surprise."

"It was," I managed. "It is."

He smiled, and for a moment he looked younger, lighter, like a man who'd been carrying a weight he'd finally set down. "You've given them something, Isabella. Something they didn't know they were hungry for."

I shook my head. "I didn't do anything. I just... showed up."

"That's all any of us can do," he said. "Show up. Again and again. And let God do the rest."

The grandmother was still holding my hand. Her grip tightened, and she pulled me closer, her voice a fierce whisper in my ear.

"I know who you are," she said. "I know what you were. I've seen the way you carry yourself, the way you watch the corners of the street like you're waiting for someone to grab you."

My blood went cold. I tried to pull away, but her grip held.

"I was like you," she continued. "Fifty years ago, in a different city, under a different name. I did things I'm not proud of. Things that would make your priest weep."

She released my hand and reached up to touch my face, her palm rough against my cheek.

"And then I found this," she said, tapping the rosary that hung around her neck. "And I learned that God doesn't care about the things we did. He only cares about the things we do next."

Tears burned in my eyes. I blinked them back, but one escaped, freezing on my cheek in the cold air.

"You are going to be baptized," the grandmother said, "and I am going to be there. And I am going to weep like a baby, because I have waited fifty years to see someone like me walk into the light."

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know if there were words for what I was feeling—the impossible weight of her confession, the grace of her acceptance, the terrifying, beautiful reality that I was not alone in my shame.

Irina appeared at my side, her hand on my elbow. "We should go," she said softly. "You need to rest."

I nodded, but I couldn't move. The crowd was dispersing slowly, people pairing off, exchanging phone numbers, promising to see each other on Saturday. The teenager was helping his sister adjust her jacket. The man with the blue rosary was clapping Yuri on the back. The grandmother's daughter was standing apart, her arms crossed, watching her mother with an expression I couldn't read.

And then the daughter's eyes met mine.

For a moment, neither of us moved. The distance between us was maybe ten feet, but it felt like a chasm. I saw myself in her—the wariness, the armor, the desperate need to believe that there was something more, paired with the bone-deep certainty that there wasn't.

She looked away first.

I let Irina lead me off the corner, my legs unsteady beneath me. The basket on my arm was lighter now—I'd given away the last of the rosaries, pressing them into hands that reached for them like they were water in a desert.

We walked in silence for a block. Then two. The cold bit at my cheeks, and I pulled my coat tighter, feeling the weight of the twins pressing against my spine.

"I forgot it was so near," I said finally. "The baptism."

Irina was quiet for a moment. "It wasn't my place to tell you."

"But you knew."

"I knew Father Alexei was planning something. I didn't know the details." She glanced at me, her dark eyes unreadable. "Does it bother you? That he announced it without asking?"

I thought about it. The priest had stood on a street corner and told twenty strangers that I would be baptized, without asking my permission, without warning me, without giving me a chance to prepare.

And somehow, impossibly, I wasn't bothered.

"No," I said. "It doesn't bother me."

Irina's lips curved into something that might have been a smile. "Good. Because I think he's been waiting a long time to baptize someone who actually wants it."

We walked another block in silence. The city was waking up around us—shops opening, buses grinding past, a woman shouting at a man from a third-floor window. Life going on, indifferent to the miracle that had just happened on a frozen street corner.

"Irina," I said, and she turned to look at me. "When I'm baptized... will I be forgiven? Really forgiven?"

She stopped walking. Her hand found mine, and she held it tightly.

"I don't know what you need forgiveness for," she said. "But I know that God's mercy is bigger than anything you've done. Bigger than anything any of us have done."

She squeezed my hand. "You are already forgiven, Isabella. You've been forgiven since the moment you first knelt on that corner and asked for help. The baptism is just... making it official."

I laughed—a wet, broken sound that surprised me. "Making it official."

"Yes." She smiled, and for a moment she looked almost young. "God loves paperwork. Ask any priest."

We walked the rest of the way home in silence, but it was a different kind of silence than before. It was the silence of two women who had found something they'd been looking for, even if they hadn't known they were looking.

When we reached the house, Dmitri was waiting in the doorway. He stood with his arms crossed, his grey suit immaculate despite the early hour, and his eyes found mine the moment I stepped through the gate.

"You're cold," he said. "Your hands are red."

I looked down at my fingers, chapped and raw from the cold, from the beads, from the work of making something holy out of wire and glass.

"I'm fine," I said.

He didn't argue. He simply stepped aside and let me pass, his hand brushing my shoulder as I walked by. The touch was light, almost incidental, but I felt it all the way down to my bones.

"Father Alexei called," he said. "He told me about the baptism."

I stopped in the hallway, my heart suddenly loud in my chest. "Are you... are you angry? That he didn't ask first?"

Dmitri was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was rough.

"I am angry that I didn't think of it myself," he said. "That I didn't ask you to be baptized the moment you agreed to marry me."

He stepped closer, his hand finding mine. "You are going to be baptized into the Church, Isabella. You are going to stand in the water and be washed clean, and I am going to be there, watching, and I am going to thank God for the rest of my life that He brought you to me."

Tears burned in my eyes again. I blinked them back, but they kept coming, freezing on my cheeks in the cold air of the hallway.

"I don't deserve this," I whispered. "I don't deserve any of this."

"That's the point," Dmitri said. "None of us deserve it. That's what makes it grace."

He pulled me into his arms, and I buried my face in his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart against my cheek. The twins stirred against my ribs, a slow, insistent roll, as if they could feel the change in the air, the shift in the shape of our family.

"I'm going to be baptized," I said, the words muffled against his shirt. "I'm going to be washed clean."

"Yes," he said. "You are."

I pulled back to look at him. His eyes were wet, and he didn't try to hide it.

"And I'm going to marry you," I said. "In a church. With a priest. With Irina standing beside me."

"Yes," he said again. "You are."

I laughed, and the sound was bright and strange in the dim hallway. "I'm going to have your children. I'm going to raise them in the faith. I'm going to teach them to pray."

His hand found my belly, warm through the fabric of my dress. "Yes," he said, his voice cracking. "You are."

I leaned into him, feeling the weight of the day settle over me like a blanket. The cold was still in my bones, but something else was there too—something warm and steady and new.

Hope.

Irina appeared in the doorway, her coat already off, her dark hair coming loose from its bun. She looked at us—Dmitri's arms around me, my hand on my belly—and something soft passed over her face.

"The grandmother gave me this," she said, holding up a small paper bag. "For you. She said to eat it before you rest."

I took the bag and opened it. Inside was a single pierogi, still warm, wrapped in a cloth napkin embroidered with tiny blue flowers.

I laughed, and this time the sound was steadier. "She fed me."

"She likes you," Irina said. "She told me you remind her of herself."

I thought of the grandmother's fierce grip, her whispered confession, her weathered hand on my cheek. "I think she's right," I said. "I think she's more right than she knows."

Dmitri's arm tightened around my waist. "Come," he said. "Eat. Rest. You have a big day on Saturday."

I let him lead me into the kitchen, let him settle me into a chair, let him watch me eat the pierogi with the reverence of a man witnessing a miracle. Irina sat across from me, her blue rosary wound around her wrist, and I caught her lips moving silently—praying, I realized. Praying for me.

The twins rolled against my ribs, and I placed my hand on my belly, feeling them move.

Two days until I was washed clean. Two days until I became, officially and forever, a child of God.

I couldn't wait.

The pierogi was good. Better than good—it was the kind of food that reminded me I had a body, that I was more than a collection of prayers and fears wrapped in skin. I ate it slowly, savoring each bite, while Dmitri watched me with an attention that made my cheeks warm.

Irina excused herself after a few minutes, pressing a kiss to the top of my head that lingered a moment longer than necessary. "Rest after this," she said. "You've earned it."

Then she was gone, and it was just Dmitri and me in the warm kitchen, the morning light slanting through the windows and catching the dust motes floating in the air.

I finished the last bite of pierogi and set the napkin aside. The twins were quiet now, settled after their morning wakefulness, and I felt the absence of their movement like a held breath.

"Dmitri," I said, and he looked up from the coffee he was nursing. "I want to ask you something."

He set down his cup. "Anything."

The words felt clumsy in my mouth, too big for the space between us. "I've been thinking about Saturday. About the vigil. And I realized... I don't know what happens."

His brow furrowed slightly. "What do you mean?"

"I mean the liturgy. The prayers. I know what it means to be baptized—Father Alexei has explained that. But the vigil itself..." I trailed off, embarrassed. "I don't know the words. I don't know what I'm supposed to say, or when to kneel, or what any of it means."

Dmitri was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was gentle in a way that made my chest ache.

"You want me to teach you."

"I want you to teach me," I confirmed. "You know these things. You grew up with them. And I—" I stopped, swallowed. "I don't want to stand there like a fool, not knowing what's happening. I want to understand. I want to mean the words I'm saying."

He rose from his chair and crossed to me, his hand finding my shoulder. The touch was warm through the fabric of my dress, grounding me in the present moment.

"Wait here," he said. "I have something."

He left the kitchen, and I heard his footsteps on the stairs, then the creak of a door opening. He was gone for several minutes, long enough for me to wonder if I'd said something wrong, to replay my words and find them wanting.

But then he returned, and in his hands was a small book—leather-bound, worn at the edges, the spine cracked from years of use. He held it like it was made of glass.

"This was my mother's," he said, settling into the chair beside me. "She used it every Easter. Every vigil. She'd read the prayers aloud to us on the way to church, my brother and me, so we'd know what to expect."

He opened the book carefully, the pages yellowed and thin. "I haven't looked at it in years. Not since she died."

I reached out, then hesitated. "May I?"

He placed it in my hands without a word.

The leather was soft, worn smooth by decades of fingers turning pages. The edges of the pages were gilded once, now faded to a dull gold. There was a ribbon marker—faded blue silk—tucked near the end.

"The Exsultet," Dmitri said, leaning close to point at the page. "It's the great proclamation of the Easter vigil. The song of joy that announces Christ's resurrection."

His finger traced the words, and I leaned in to read them. The Latin was strange on my tongue, the syllables unfamiliar, but something in me recognized them anyway—like hearing a language I'd known in a dream.

"Read it to me," I said. "Please."

Dmitri was quiet for a moment. Then he took the book from my hands and began to read.

"Exsultet iam angelica turba caelorum," he said, his voice low and rough. "Exsultent divina mysteria."

The Latin rolled off his tongue like water over stones, smooth and ancient and full of light. I didn't understand the words, not yet, but I understood the shape of them—the rising and falling, the joy that seemed to live inside the sounds themselves.

"What does it mean?" I asked when he paused.

"Let the angelic choirs of heaven now exult," he translated, his eyes still on the page. "Let the divine mysteries exult. Let the trumpet of salvation sound aloud, proclaiming the victory of so great a King."

He looked up at me, and there was something raw in his face—something I hadn't seen before. "It's the beginning," he said. "The moment when the whole Church holds its breath, waiting for the light."

"The light," I repeated.

"The paschal candle," he said. "The fire struck from stone. The light of Christ, entering the darkness."

He read on, his voice rising and falling with the rhythm of the ancient words. "This is the night," he said, and his voice cracked on the word night. "This is the night when Christians everywhere, washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement, are restored to grace and grow together in holiness."

He paused, and I saw his throat work as he swallowed.

"This is the night," he continued, "when Christ broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld."

His hand found mine, his fingers intertwining with my own. "This is the night," he said, and his voice was barely a whisper now, "that you will be born again."

The words hung in the air between us, heavy with meaning. I felt them settle into my chest, into the hollow place where Carter used to live, where the whore Isabella had learned to survive.

"Read me the rest," I said. "Please. I want to hear it all."

He nodded and turned back to the page. His voice grew stronger as he read, filling the kitchen with the ancient words of joy. "O truly blessed night," he read, "when earth and heaven are joined and man is reconciled to God."

I closed my eyes, letting the words wash over me. I didn't understand all of them, but I understood the shape of them—the arc of darkness to light, of death to life, of despair to hope.

It was the shape of my own story.

When he finished, he closed the book gently, his thumb tracing the worn leather of the cover. "There's more," he said. "The vigil is long. There are readings—seven of them, sometimes more. The story of creation, the flood, the sacrifice of Isaac, the crossing of the Red Sea."

"Teach me," I said again. "All of it."

He looked at me, and something shifted in his face—something I couldn't name. "It will take time."

"I have time," I said. "I have two days."

He smiled then, a real smile that reached his eyes. "Two days is not much for a lifetime of faith."

"It's enough," I said. "It has to be."

He opened the book again, turning to a different page. "The readings are long. But there's a shape to them—a story that runs through all of them." He paused, considering. "Maybe I should start with that."

I leaned forward, my elbows on the table, my chin in my hands. "Tell me."

"It's the story of God's people," he said. "Over and over, God saves them, and over and over, they forget. They wander. They worship other gods. They turn away."

His voice was low, intimate, like he was telling me a secret. "And over and over, God calls them back. Not because they deserve it. Because He loves them."

"Like the prodigal son," I said.

"Yes." His eyes met mine. "Exactly like the prodigal son."

The reference hung in the air between us. I knew the story—Father Alexei had told it to me in one of our sessions, his voice warm with wonder at the father who ran to meet his wayward child.

"I've been the prodigal," I said quietly. "I've squandered everything. I've fed pigs and wished I could eat their slop."

Dmitri's hand found mine across the table. "And now you're coming home."

"Am I?" I asked, and the question came out smaller than I intended. "I want to be. But I don't know if I know the way."

"You don't have to know the way," he said. "You just have to take the first step. And then the next. And the one after that."

He squeezed my hand. "The father didn't wait for his son to make it all the way back. He ran to meet him while he was still a long way off."

I felt tears prick at my eyes again. I blinked them back, but one escaped, tracking down my cheek. Dmitri reached up and caught it with his thumb, his touch gentle against my skin.

"You are still a long way off, Isabella," he said. "And God is already running toward you."

I leaned into his touch, letting myself feel the weight of his words. The twins stirred inside me, a slow roll against my ribs, and I placed my hand on my belly without thinking.

"Will you stay with me?" I asked. "While I learn? I don't want to do this alone."

"I'll stay," he said. "For as long as you need me."

He turned back to the book, his finger tracing the page. "The first reading is from Genesis. The story of creation. 'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.'"

He read it to me, the ancient words filling the kitchen. His voice was steady, sure, carrying the weight of a story told a thousand times before. I closed my eyes and let it wash over me.

In the beginning. Before the brothel, before the transformation, before Carter was even a name, there had been a beginning. A moment when God had looked at the void and spoken light into being.

Maybe He could speak light into me, too.

Dmitri read through the flood, through Abraham and Isaac, through the crossing of the Red Sea. His voice grew hoarse but he didn't stop, didn't pause, didn't rush. He gave each story its due, letting the ancient words settle into the space between us.

When he reached the prophets, his voice changed. "I will pour out water upon the thirsty ground," he read, "and streams upon the dry land. I will pour out my spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing upon your descendants."

He looked up at me. "That's you," he said. "Thirsty ground."

I laughed, a wet, surprised sound. "I'm very thirsty."

"I know," he said. "I can see it."

He read on, and I let myself be carried by the rhythm of his voice. The words were ancient, older than the brothel, older than the mafia, older than any of the forces that had shaped me. They were the words that had been spoken before there was anything else, and they were being spoken over me now, in this kitchen, on this ordinary morning.

It felt like a miracle.

After a while, my eyes grew heavy. The warmth of the kitchen, the steady cadence of Dmitri's voice, the quiet fullness of the twins inside me—it all combined to pull me toward sleep. I fought it for a while, not wanting to miss a single word, but eventually my head drooped, my chin touching my chest.

"Isabella." Dmitri's voice was soft, close to my ear. "You're exhausted."

"I'm fine," I mumbled. "Keep reading."

"You need to rest."

"I need to learn."

He was quiet for a moment. Then I felt his hands on my shoulders, gentle but firm, turning me to face him. "The lessons will still be here tomorrow. The vigil will still come on Saturday. But you—you need sleep."

I opened my mouth to argue, but a yawn escaped instead. Dmitri's lips curved into a smile.

"Come," he said, helping me to my feet. "I'll take you to your room."

I let him lead me out of the kitchen, up the stairs, down the hallway to my door. He opened it for me and stood in the doorway, the prayer book still clutched in his hand.

"Will you leave it with me?" I asked, nodding at the book. "I want to look at it. Before I sleep."

He hesitated, and I saw something flicker across his face—loss, maybe, or love. Then he held out the book.

"Take care of it," he said. "It's all I have left of her."

I took it from him, cradling it against my chest. "I will."

He reached out and brushed a strand of hair from my face, his touch lingering on my cheek. "Get some rest. You have a big day on Saturday."

"Two days," I corrected.

"Two days," he agreed. "And then the rest of your life."

He turned to go, and I almost let him. But something made me reach out, catching his sleeve.

"Dmitri."

He turned back. "Yes?"

"Thank you," I said. "For teaching me. For reading to me. For—" I struggled for words. "For being here."

His face softened. "Where else would I be?"

He left, closing the door behind him, and I stood alone in the room with his mother's prayer book in my hands.

I crossed to the bed and sat down, opening the book to the page he'd marked with the faded blue ribbon. The Exsultet. The great proclamation of joy.

I read the words silently, my lips moving around the unfamiliar Latin. I didn't know what most of them meant, not yet. But I could feel their shape, their weight, their ancient power.

This is the night. The words echoed in my chest. This is the night when everything changes.

The twins stirred inside me, a slow, insistent roll that made me catch my breath. I placed my hand on my belly, feeling them move, feeling the impossible reality of them.

Two days. Two days until I was washed clean. Two days until I became, officially and forever, a child of God.

I closed the book and held it against my chest, feeling the worn leather against my skin. Somewhere downstairs, I heard Dmitri's footsteps, the low murmur of his voice as he spoke to someone—Elena, maybe, or Irina.

I thought of the grandmother on the corner, her fierce grip, her whispered confession. I thought of the teenager and his sister, of Yuri and his wife's rosary, of the nine strangers who had become twenty, who had become a congregation.

I thought of the light that was coming, the fire that would be struck from stone, the candle that would pierce the darkness of the vigil.

I thought of Dmitri's mother, who had carried this book to Easter vigils for years, who had read these words to her sons on the way to church. I thought of her holding this same book, her fingers tracing these same pages, her voice rising in joy at the ancient proclamation.

I hoped she would be there on Saturday. I hoped she would be watching when I stepped into the water.

The twins rolled again, and I smiled, placing my hand flat against my belly. "You'll be there too," I whispered. "Both of you. You'll be there when your mother is born again."

I lay back on the bed, still holding the book, and let my eyes drift closed. The words of the Exsultet echoed in my mind, half-remembered, half-felt.

This is the night. This is the night.

I fell asleep with the book against my chest, the faded blue ribbon marking the page, and for the first time in longer than I could remember, I dreamed of light.

I woke to gray light and the smell of coffee, the prayer book still pressed against my chest. For a moment I didn't know where I was—the brothel, Luca's house, the jet—and then the twins rolled, a slow, insistent wave, and I remembered. Dmitri's house. Two days until the vigil. Two days until I was born again.

I sat up slowly, the book sliding into my lap. The faded blue ribbon marked the Exsultet, and I traced it with my finger, feeling the worn silk. Somewhere in this house, Father Alexei was preparing for Saturday. Somewhere, Irina was planning my dress. And I was lying here, still carrying the name of a man who no longer existed, about to step into the water and be washed clean.

But what name would I take?

The question had been gnawing at me for days, a splinter I kept meaning to pull. In the Church, you chose a saint's name at baptism—a patron, a protector, a name to carry into your new life. I had been Carter, then Isabella, and now I was about to become something else entirely. Something I hadn't yet named.

I dressed quickly, pulling on a simple gray dress and carding my fingers through my honey-blond hair. The gold collar was gone now, replaced by the silver cross Irina had given me, the one engraved with Nadezhda. Hope. I touched it, feeling the cool metal against my skin, and wondered if that was the answer.

But no. Nadezhda was Irina's mother's name, already written in the family book for a daughter who might never come. It wasn't mine to take.

I found my way to the kitchen, where Elena was stirring something at the stove. She glanced up as I entered, her eyes assessing me as they always did, and then nodded toward the table.

"Sit. You eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"Sit," she said again, and I sat.

The porridge was warm and thick, sweetened with honey, and I ate it mechanically, my mind still circling the question. Saint names. I knew so few of them. Mary, of course—the mother of God, the one every girl was named after. But that felt too large, too holy, like wearing a crown I hadn't earned.

There was Saint Thérèse, the little flower, who Father Alexei had taught me about. She had promised to spend her heaven doing good on earth, and I had felt something stir in me when I heard her story. But she was a nun, cloistered and pure, untouched by the world in ways I could never be.

And there was Saint Mary of Egypt, the whore who had walked into the desert and been saved. I had felt her story in my bones, had wept over her in the chapel. But to take her name felt like a confession I wasn't ready to make, a label I was still learning to wear without shame.

"You are thinking too hard." Elena's voice cut through my reverie. "Your forehead, it is wrinkled like a prune."

I laughed, surprised. "I'm trying to choose a saint's name. For my baptism."

Elena's spoon paused mid-stir. She was quiet for a long moment, and then she turned to face me, her dark eyes unreadable. "You are asking the wrong person. I am not a believer."

"But you know saints," I said. "You've worked for this family for twelve years. You must have heard—"

"I have heard many names," she said. "I have heard them prayed over coffins and whispered at bedsides. But I do not know what they mean to you." She turned back to the stove. "Ask the priest. He will know."

I finished my porridge in silence, the question still churning. The kitchen was warm, filled with the smell of bread and herbs, and I could hear the distant sound of Dmitri's voice somewhere in the house, low and steady. He was probably on the phone, or speaking with the courier, or any of the thousand things a man like him did to keep his world turning.

My world was smaller now. It was this house, this kitchen, the chapel down the hall. It was the twins growing inside me, the strangers on the corner who had become a congregation, the name I was about to choose and carry for the rest of my life.

The weight of it pressed down on me, and I pushed back from the table, suddenly restless.

"I'm going to the chapel," I said.

Elena nodded without turning around. "The priest is there. He has been there since dawn."

The chapel was cold when I entered, the way it always was, the stone walls holding the chill of the morning. Father Alexei was kneeling before the altar, his head bowed, and I hesitated in the doorway, not wanting to interrupt.

But he heard me. He always heard me.

"Isabella." He rose, turning to face me, his eyes warm behind his glasses. "You are up early."

"I couldn't sleep," I said. "I have a question."

"Ask."

I moved into the chapel, my footsteps echoing on the stone. The Saint Michael window caught the morning light, casting a blue glow across the floor, and I stopped beneath it, looking up at the archangel's stern face.

"I need to choose a saint's name," I said. "For my baptism. And I don't know how."

Father Alexei's expression softened. He crossed to me, his cassock rustling against the stone, and stood beside me, looking up at the window.

"It is not a choice to be made lightly," he said. "The saint you choose becomes your companion, your intercessor, your model. They walk with you for the rest of your life."

"That's what I'm afraid of," I admitted. "What if I choose wrong? What if I pick a name and then I can't live up to it?"

"You misunderstand," he said gently. "The saint is not a standard you must meet. They are a friend who has already walked the road you are walking. They know the pitfalls, the temptations, the moments when you want to give up. They are there to help you, not to judge you."

I looked at him, feeling the familiar ache in my chest. "But how do I know which one?"

"How did you know to come to the Church?" he asked. "How did you know to keep coming back to this chapel, to keep praying, even when you felt unworthy?"

I thought about it. "I don't know. I just... I felt called. Like something was pulling me here."

"And that is how you will know your saint," he said. "You will feel it. A pull, a recognition. A sense that this name, this person, is yours."

I shook my head. "But I don't feel anything. I've been thinking about it all morning, and I just—" I broke off, frustrated. "I don't even know most of the saints. I grew up with nothing. No church, no religion. I know Mary and Joseph and Michael because you've taught me. But there are thousands of them, aren't there? How am I supposed to choose from thousands?"

Father Alexei smiled. "You are not choosing from thousands. You are choosing from the ones God places in your path. The ones whose stories reach you, whose names echo in your heart." He paused. "Tell me, Isabella. When you think of the women you admire—the ones who have shaped you, the ones you want to be like—who comes to mind?"

I opened my mouth to answer, and then closed it. The women who had shaped me. Mama Rosa, who had clipped my wings even as she taught me to fly. Irina, who had called me little sister and given me her mother's cross. Monica, the former prostitute who had found peace in the Church. Mary of Egypt, who had walked into the desert and been saved.

And then there was the grandmother on the corner. The one who had gripped my hands and whispered her confession, who had promised to weep at my baptism. She had been a prostitute too, fifty years ago, and she had found forgiveness. She had found God.

"I don't know," I said finally. "There are so many."

"Then let me tell you a story," Father Alexei said. "A story about a woman who might be the one you're looking for."

He led me to the pew, and I sat down, my hands folded in my lap. The twins stirred, a gentle roll, as if they too were settling in to listen.

"There was once a woman named Pelagia," he began. "She lived in Antioch, in the fifth century. She was an actress, a dancer, a woman of great beauty and great sin. She wore jewels and silks, and she led many men to ruin with her charms. She was, by every account, a harlot."

He paused, letting the word settle between us. I felt it land in my chest, a familiar sting, and I looked down at my hands.

"One day," he continued, "a holy bishop came to Antioch to address a council of bishops. Pelagia, curious and bold, rode past the church on a donkey, dressed in her finest silks, her face painted, her hair adorned with pearls. The bishops saw her and turned away in disgust—all except one. This bishop, whose name was Nonnus, watched her pass, and he wept."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because he saw, in that moment of her greatest beauty, the beauty she was wasting. He saw what she could become if she turned her heart to God. And he prayed for her, right there, in front of all the other bishops."

I felt something shift in my chest, a tightness I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

"When Pelagia heard about this bishop who had wept for her," Father Alexei went on, "she was curious. She sought him out. And when she heard him preach, when she heard the words of God spoken with such love and such sorrow, she was changed. She fell to her knees and asked to be baptized."

"And he baptized her?" I asked.

"He did. And she gave away all her riches, all her silks and jewels and pearls. She cut her hair. She dressed in sackcloth. And she went to live as a recluse on the Mount of Olives, in a small cell, where she spent the rest of her life in prayer and penance. The men who had known her as a harlot did not recognize her when they saw her again. They saw only a holy woman, a servant of God."

I was quiet for a long moment. The twins moved inside me, a gentle flutter, and I placed my hand on my belly without thinking.

"Pelagia," I said, testing the name on my tongue. It felt foreign, unfamiliar. But there was something there, a resonance I couldn't quite name.

"She is the patron saint of actresses," Father Alexei said. "And of those who have led a life of sin and repented. Her feast day is October the eighth."

I looked up at him. "How do you know all these stories?"

"I have been a priest for twenty years," he said. "I have spent many nights reading the lives of the saints. They are my family, in a way. My companions." He smiled. "I hope they will become yours too."

I sat with the name, turning it over in my mind. Pelagia. It was a beautiful name, a strong name. But was it mine?

"I don't know," I said honestly. "I like it. But I don't know if it's the one."

"You have until Saturday," Father Alexei said. "The Church does not require you to choose until the moment of baptism. And even then, if you feel you have chosen wrong, you may change it. The name is a gift, not a cage."

I nodded, but the weight was still there. I wanted to choose well. I wanted to choose a name that would carry me through the rest of my life, a name that would remind me of who I was becoming.

"Can I ask you something else?" I said.

"Of course."

"What was your baptismal name?"

Father Alexei's eyes crinkled with warmth. "Alexei is my baptismal name. I was named for Saint Alexius of Rome, a man who gave up wealth and status to live as a beggar, unknown and unrecognized, for the love of God." He paused. "I have always tried to live up to it. Though I fear I have not always succeeded."

"I think you have," I said softly. "You found me, didn't you? When I was lost."

His smile deepened. "I did not find you, Isabella. God brought you here. I was just the one who opened the door."

We sat together in the quiet of the chapel, the Saint Michael window casting its blue light across the floor. I thought about Pelagia, the actress who had given up everything to follow God. I thought about Mary of Egypt, the whore who had walked into the desert. I thought about all the women who had come before me, who had carried the weight of their sins and been forgiven.

And I thought about myself. The man I had been, the woman I had become, the mother I was about to be. All the names I had carried—Carter, Isabella, whore, concubine, mother. None of them had been chosen. All of them had been given to me by others.

This time, I would choose.

But what?

I left the chapel with the question still unanswered, the name Pelagia lingering in my mind like a half-remembered song. I found my way to the small room where I made my rosaries, the blue beads and silver wire spread across the table, and I sat down, picking up a strand of beads.

The work was meditative, familiar. I had made so many rosaries in the past weeks—fifty for the corner, nine for the letters, one for Irina, one for Dmitri. My fingers knew the rhythm now, the slide of the beads, the twist of the wire, the quiet repetition of the prayers.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

I threaded a bead onto the wire, my mind drifting. Pelagia. Mary of Egypt. Thérèse. All the women who had been saved, who had been forgiven, who had found God in the midst of their sin.

Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

My hand paused on the bead. The fruit of thy womb. I thought of the twins, of Aleksandr and Mikhail, of the life growing inside me. I thought of the grandmother on the corner, who had promised to weep at my baptism. I thought of the light that was coming, the fire that would be struck from stone.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

The words settled into me, a rhythm I had come to love. I finished the bead, moved to the next one, and let my mind wander.

What did it mean to choose a name? It meant to say, this is who I am. This is who I want to be. It meant to claim a piece of the story and make it mine.

I thought about the names I had been given. Carter, the name of a man who no longer existed. Isabella, the name of a woman who had been made, not born. And soon, a new name. A name I would choose for myself, for the first time in my life.

The fear of choosing wrong was paralyzing. But so was the fear of not choosing at all.

I set down the rosary and pressed my hands to my belly, feeling the twins move inside me. They were so small, so dependent on me. They didn't know that their mother was about to be born again, that she was about to step into the water and emerge a different person.

"What should I choose?" I whispered. "What name should I carry?"

The twins didn't answer. They just moved, a slow, insistent roll, as if they were settling in for the long wait.

I sat there for a long time, the beads spread out before me, the question hanging in the air. And then, slowly, I began to pray.

Not for an answer. Not for a sign. Just for peace. Just for the courage to trust that when the moment came, I would know.

The hours passed. I made rosaries, one after another, my fingers moving in the familiar rhythm. I prayed the Hail Mary, the Our Father, the Glory Be. I let the words wash over me, let them carry me forward.

And somewhere in the middle of the afternoon, as the light began to slant through the window, I felt a shift. A quiet certainty, settling into my chest like a stone dropping into still water.

I didn't know the name yet. But I knew it would come. And when it did, I would be ready.

I finished the rosary I was working on and set it aside, looking at the pile of beads and wire that remained. There was still so much to do before Saturday. So much to prepare.

But for now, I could rest. I could trust.

I stood up, stretching, my hand pressed to my belly. The twins were quiet now, as if they too were resting. I walked to the window and looked out at the gray Moscow sky, the city spread out below me like a promise.

Two days. Two days until I was washed clean. Two days until I chose my name and stepped into the light.

I touched the cross at my throat, the silver warm against my skin. Nadezhda. Hope.

And I waited.