He looks at me through the galley window of the kitchen, eyebrows raised. And so I find myself telling Noah Ross about Drenthe, and the war, and how BD had FedExed me a giant Ziploc bag of poetry this week. I tell him how, reading it, I’d felt a new kinship with my grandfather; I wasn’t the only weirdo in my family of doctors to ever care about words on a page. Saying all this aloud feels meaningful, and I’m glad to have Noah here to listen.

“If you hadn’t sent me those tulips,” I say, “I wouldn’t have understood that my mother planted tulips for her father. I wouldn’t have looked this closely to find the reason I’ve always loved the simple way they bloom. Because of her. Because of him.”

“I think what you’re talking about is the second draft effect,” Noah calls from the kitchen.

I rise from the couch and go to the kitchen, where I find him plating sushi like a chef. “Explain.”

“You know how the second draft is the point where things start to make sense?” he says, taking out real chopsticks from a drawer, tossing aside the disposable ones. “It’s why I blaze through my first drafts so quickly—to get there.”

I know what Noah means. Back in the garden with my mother, that was the first draft. Exploring the cool, damp soil between my toes. The curving yellow stripes of a caterpillar wriggling across a leaf. The weight of my mother’s hands over mine as she showed me how to pack the bulbs into the earth. The sunny sound of her voice when we sang Lucinda Williams songs together, “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.” The pleasure of being with her overwhelmed my power to know what it all meant.

Time and space and losing her, emails with Noah, talks with BD, and the Ziploc bag of poems have given things a new perspective. I can shine a light on the meaning that was always there. It feels like getting a little more of my mother and my grandfather than I’d had before.

“Can I help?” I ask.

It’s too late to help, and this is not accidental. Meg would have called me out—Classic Lanie! But Noah has done a far better job setting up this feast than I could have. There are little dishes for soy sauce and ponzu and ginger, ceramic chopstick holders. He’s even transferred the miso soup to actual bowls. It looks elegant and delicious.

“I think we’re ready,” he says, carrying the sushi to a marble table by the fireplace. I find myself watching the way he walks, blushing when he looks back and catches me.

There’s a carrot roll for Javier Bardem to enjoy at his own small table. For several moments, I fall into the cute vortex of watching a bunny eat sushi.