I have kept that starter alive ever since.

R-07 lives on my counter now, in its little glass jar, and I feed it on a schedule I keep in a notebook of my own, with dates and ratios and, yes, little checkmarks on the days it doubles nicely, a logbook that would look every bit as incriminating as Jacqueline’s did if the wrong panicked person ever found it under a bed.

Sometimes, when I feed it, I catch myself murmuring to it, a low encouraging little hum, and I stop and laugh out loud in my empty kitchen, because I have become, without ever deciding to, a flour girl myself.

The thing I was so frightened of turned out to be a thing I would fall in love with.