I closed my eyes and imagined my mother stirring a pot of soup. I tried to dress her in ordinary clothes, but she refused to take off the bridal veil she wore in the photograph by Da’s bed. I loved that picture more than all the others because Da was looking at her and she was looking straight at me. The veil will end up in the soup, I thought, and smiled.

“She was under the instruction of her aunt, Miss Fernley,” Ditte continued, “a very tall and very capable woman who was not only secretary of our tennis club, where this story takes place, but headmistress of a small private ladies’ college. Lily was a student at her aunt’s school, and the cucumber-and-watercress soup was apparently on the syllabus.”

“What is syllabus?” I asked.

“It is the list of subjects you learn about at school.”

“Do I have a syllabus at St. Barnabas?”

“You’ve only just started, so reading and writing are all that’s on your syllabus. They’ll add subjects as you get older.”

“What will they add?”

“Hopefully something less domestic than cucumber-and-watercress soup. Now, may I continue?”

“Yes, please.”

“Miss Fernley had insisted that Lily make the soup for our club lunch. It was awful; everyone thought so, and some even said it out loud. I’m afraid Lily may have overheard, because she retreated to the club-house and busied herself with wiping tables that didn’t need wiping.”

“Poor Lily,” I said.

“Well, you might not think so when you hear the rest of the story. If it wasn’t for that awful soup, you might never have been born.”

I knew what was coming and held my breath to hear it.

“Somehow, your father managed to empty his bowl. I was dumbfounded, but then I watched him take that bowl into the kitchen and ask Lily for a second helping.”

“Did he eat that too?”

“He did. And between mouthfuls, he asked Lily question after question, and her face went from that of a shy and awkward girl to a confident young woman in the space of fifteen minutes.”

“What did he ask her?”

“That I can’t tell you, but by the time he’d finished eating, it was as if they had known each other all their lives.”

“Did you know they would get married?”

“Well, I remember thinking how fortunate it was that Harry knew how to boil an egg, because Lily was never going to like spending too much time in the kitchen. So, yes, I think I did know they would get married.”

“And then I was born and then she died.”

“Yes.”

“But when we talk about her, she comes to life.”

“Never forget that, Esme. Words are our tools of resurrection.”

A new word. I looked up.

“It’s when you bring something back,” Ditte said.

“But Lily will never really come back.”

“No. She won’t.”