As we’re stirring risotto on Saturday afternoon, Janet puts on a CD of Puccini and tells me how she spent a year in Italy at the age of twenty, learning to cook and speak the language. She tells me how she came home for a holiday, intending to return to Italy after a month. She’d been offered a cooking job there. But she met Benjamin, Nathaniel’s father—and never took the job.
“He must have been an extraordinary person for you to do that.” I look up from the risotto.
“Yes, he was,” says Janet, her face softening. “He was funny and warm … and full of life. And kind. Most of all, kind.” Then she notices my stationary spoon. “Keep stirring!”
On Sunday afternoon, under Janet’s calm guidance, I make roast chicken with sage and onion stuffing, steamed broccoli, cumin-scented carrots, and roas
