She kept her back to the window as she stirred with a long wooden ladle.

“I remembered how much you loved this when you were twelve, Eleanor,” she said softly.

She ladled a golden helping into a porcelain bowl and set it in front of me on a woven placemat.

Her silver spoon tapped the rim twice before she sat down in the chair across from mine.

“David always loved your cooking too,” Martha said.

“He told me once nobody made broth the way you did.”