“It’s the one with the nutmeg on top.

From the card in the recipe tin.”

“I know that recipe, Mother.”

She sat down on the sofa next to me and cried, quietly, the way she always does, dabbing once at each eye and then holding the tissue in her lap and staring at it.

I pressed my thumb into my index finger and let her get there in her own time.

“Take Robert’s offer,” she said.