“Whenever we hear that one of our colleagues is going through a hard time, we try to have a sit-down with them,” Shelly explained, putting the bread on the table and coming back to sit next to Via.

Was that what was happening to Via? Was she going through a hard time? Via thought of the way breakups were depicted in movies. Pints of Häagen-Dazs and tears over rom-coms. She was sad over ending things with Evan, sure, but she had to admit, she hadn’t had that drafty feeling since she’d come back from upstate and packed up all his things from her apartment. She chewed her bottom lip.

“Actually, this is how we became such good friends with Sebastian,” Grace said, groaning a little as she lowered herself into the chair across from Shelly and Via. The stew steamed on the table and Via did the honors of serving up a bowl for each person. She was glad for the task because she could feel each woman’s eyes on her face and she knew that they were looking for a reaction to Sebastian’s name. “When we found out he was a widower, we had him over for dinner, told him about our husbands, and we all just sort of bonded from there.”

“He mentioned that you’d both lost your husbands. I’m so sorry about that. Was it recent?”

To Via’s dismay, Shelly’s eyes filled with tears. “Richard passed about five years ago, but it feels recent for me.”

Grace leaned across the table and squeezed Shelly’s hand, and then she pointed to a picture hanging on her kitchen wall. It was of a very young Grace and an equally young Latino man who stood behind her with his arms crossed over her chest. “Esteban died about thirty years ago. My kids are starting to get after me to date.”

Via hid her surprise. It had never occurred to her that Grace had been in an interracial marriage. But that was probably because Grace was an older white lady and Via had just made assumptions. She suddenly thought back to her lunch with Sadie when Sadie had been so surprised to hear that Via was a foster kid. It made sense in a new way now. You never could tell who someone really was unless you broke bread with them, actually stopped to listen to what they were trying to tell you.

“Thirty years is a long time,” Via mused. Unbidden, a question popped up and out of her. She didn’t mean to ask it, but maybe her conversation with Sebastian about grief had greased some internal wheels because Via didn’t feel uncomfortable asking. “Do you ever get over it?” She cleared her throat. “I lost my parents when I was twelve. And some days it feels just as hard as it was back then.”

Grace raised her eyebrows in a knowing way. “Get over it? No. Not if what you actually mean is forget about it.”

“In my experience,” Shelly chimed in, “the way I feel has changed a lot, but I can’t imagine ever getting over it. My sister wants me to date, too, just like Grace’s kids.” In an uncharacteristic show of temper, Shelly let her spoon clatter back to her bowl of stew. “What is it with people’s fascination with other people’s dating lives?”