Rose ate four pieces of bread before she said anything.
She sat at the back of the barge with a blanket around her shoulders and her mother's arm around the blanket. Agnes hadn't let go of her since the middle of the lake. Agnes didn't eat. She just watched her daughter eat. Every so often she reached up and touched Rose's hair. Then, a little later, she touched it again.
When the fourth piece was gone, Rose wiped her mouth and looked up at Nathan.
"I remember you," she said. "In the kitchen. Before. A man came and said my mother's name, and I couldn't turn around." Her voice was hoarse. "Was that you?"
"That was Gerald," Nathan said. "He's on his way to Albion now."
"Tell him thank you. When you see him." She looked down at her hands. "I remember all of it. Every loaf. Every night."
"Every night?" Nathan said.
Rose nodded slowly.
