But I was also, by getting sick, being kind to her, by giving her back for two nights the oldest and most necessary of her jobs, the one widowhood had taken away — someone under her roof who needed her.

We rescued each other in that flu and called it a fever.

It was the first of many times we would do that, each pretending to be the only one doing the rescuing.

Chapter 6 — Albert’s Kitchen

Enid cooked the way some people pray, daily and without fuss and as though it were the least remarkable thing in the world, and sometime after the flu she began, without announcement, to cook for two.

It started as leftovers pointed in my direction and became, by December, a place set at the table across from her, Albert’s old place, the one she must have decided I could have now.