Two weeks earlier, I had come down the hall and heard, through the shut door, a low, rhythmic humming, a soft murmuring sound, as though someone inside were having a gentle, one-sided conversation with a houseplant.

I had stopped, listened for half a second, and then made myself keep walking, because a good daughter-in-law does not press her ear to her mother-in-law’s door.

A month before that, Theodore had wandered into the kitchen chuckling to himself about Jacqueline’s “secret little projects,” and when I looked up, curious, Jacqueline had appeared in the doorway behind him and shushed him with a rapid, almost panicked flick of her hand.

“How is my little flour girl doing today?” Theodore had asked her once, in the hallway, in a voice full of affection, and Jacqueline had swatted his arm and turned away, her cheeks pink.