I got up early and baked the hot cinnamon rolls she used to make me every Sunday morning, until the whole house smelled of cinnamon and butter the way our small kitchen once had.

I found the jazz records she used to play while she cleaned, and I let them turn on the record player in the afternoons.

I drove her to the park where she used to buy me ice cream after school, and we sat on a bench and watched other people’s children.

And nothing came.

She smiled at all of it — she was unfailingly gentle, unfailingly polite — but the light I was waiting for never came into her eyes.

She would taste a cinnamon roll and say it was lovely, the way you compliment a stranger’s cooking.