She glances up from her muffin. Her mother has a knife poised against a soft-boiled egg, ready to crack it open, but Isabelle shakes her head; she has muffin to eat.

“Eleanor?”

“Thank you, Ruth, dear, no. But Wilson will have it, won’t you, Wil?”

“I suppose you could twist my arm,” he says. “I’m not going to be able to eat dinner, though!”

“You sure, Isabelle? This is dinner, for you,” Ruth says.

Isabelle nods again, chewing, and reaches for another spread from the lazy Susan.

“Marmite!” her grandmother exclaims. “A girl after my own heart!”

“Do you like Marmite, Belle?”

Isabelle pauses to inspect the brown stuff now on her knife. She has never had Marmite before, and it smells terrible, but all eyes are on her, so she spreads it on thick. She looks up and nods.

“God,” her father says. “I hate the stuff.”

Isabelle puts the muffin in her mouth and starts to chew. A taste like rubber fills her mouth.

“You like it?” her father asks.

She looks from her father to her grandmother and nods. She wants to be a girl after her grandmother’s heart, though to swallow this bitter mouthful is a struggle. She reaches for her tea and takes a large sip; it burns her tongue.

“Marmite is good for you,” her grandmother says to her father. “Lots of vitamin B.”

“Protein, too, right?” Her mother breaks a piece of cookie from the plate of them; Isabelle reaches for the other half to try to clear her palate.

“Protein, too. I give it to the horses sometimes. They like it on apples,” her grandmother says. “It’s good for their eyes, too.”

“Is that right?” her father asks.

“Well, I think so.” Isabelle watches her grandmother’s fingers curl into the sugar dish for a cube; the joints seem too swollen to bend. Her grandmother drops one sugar cube and then another and another into her tea. “Dr. Marks says Brodie’s eyes are exceptionally good for a horse his age, and he’s had Marmite all his life.” She brings her cup to her mouth; the cup seems to tremble in her hand more than her hand seems to tremble. Her hand is too thick to tremble, it seems to Isabelle. Her grandmother’s lips purse around the rim of her cup as she takes a sip. The lines gather deep around her mouth, and Isabelle can trace them upward to where they disappear into her cheek. She has never seen wrinkles quite like these before. They aren’t the kind of loose wrinkles made by sagging skin; instead they seem chiseled, and beautiful. The wrinkles around her eyes are still wet with tears from the cold.

Her grandmother sets her cup back onto its saucer. “You know, Wilson, Dr. Marks might be coming tomorrow to rebandage Adrien’s leg. I told you how he cut it?”

“No,” her father says.

“Awful story.” Her grandmother shakes her head. “But if he does come, then while he’s here I thought maybe he should take a look at Maggie.”