“I don’t need a nurse,” she said. “I need someone to sit at my table and pretend this house still has a family.”
I shifted on the porch. “Pretending costs extra.”
She smiled. “Then you’re honest. Come in. I’m Marianne.”
Her kitchen smelled of rosemary and old wool. She poured tea so bitter it made my eyes water, but I drank every drop.
“You’re holding that cup like someone’s going to snatch it from you,” she said.
“Habit.”
“From where?”
“Nowhere worth telling.”
She nodded and slid a tin of shortbread toward me.
Every Sunday after that, I returned.
Marianne had worked as a seamstress and designer and once owned her own store. She told me about gowns she’d made for senators’ wives and silk imported from Lyon. I listened and usually left with containers of soup tucked into my bag.
Soon, she began noticing things no one else ever had.
