“Well, that sounds appetizing.”

“It sounds really interesting, actually.” Lulu frowned reprovingly at her mother. “And there are piles of old photographs up there, too.” She paused, leaned forward over the table, and gently caressed the egg-yolk-yellow trumpets of a bunch of daffodils, bright as sunshine in a blue-and-white Mediterranean ceramic jug: Fee was a gardener. “These are pretty. They’re the first, aren’t they? I was wondering which of them might be of Grandma Jo—the photographs, I mean. What did she look like, do you know?”

“Not really.” Fee pursed her lips, trying to recall. “One of the sisters was supposed to be a beauty, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t her. I think she was quite tall. And I do know she had all her teeth to the end, which she was quite proud of.”

“Oh, big help there. Thanks, Mom, I’ll go and look for the old lady with lots and lots of really real-looking teeth. Hi, Toby, I didn’t see you there.” She lifted the cat onto her lap and tickled his substantial stomach. “Did people like her?” she asked then.

“Grandma Jo? Of course they did. The family adored her.”

“Well, the family would, wouldn’t they? But what about other people? Proper people-type people out there in the world who didn’t have to like her at all if they didn’t want to.”

“Hmm.” Glancing surreptitiously at her daughter, Fee decided that this was not the occasion to point out to her that all families were not as unquestioningly loving and loyal as the Atwaters. Instead, she rose and filled the kettle at the sink, her back turned to the kitchen table. “She was a strong taste,” she said, after a moment. “That was fine when she was older because people admired her and said she was a character. But I imagine she found it a little more difficult when she was young. Well, you and I both know that one, don’t we, Lulu? We’re both strong tastes, and I know I found my twenties quite hard sometimes. Sometimes other people do have problems dealing with a strong personality, especially if it comes in a girl, which seems unfair, but I’m afraid it’s true. But a nice thing about getting older is that older people have lived a little more—some of us have maybe gotten a little less judgmental over the years, and others have maybe proved their worth a little more specifically in certain circumstances—so we’re most of us able to see more clearly into the hearts of the people we know. And if you have a good heart—as I think we tend to, in our family—then the rest of the world will start to be aware of that, and it’ll become more important to them. And the people who are worth having around will like you accordingly. And as for the others, quite frankly, screw ’em.”

“Mm.” Seen from the corner of her mother’s eye as she plugged the kettle into the socket in the wall, Lulu looked for a moment as if she might ask more, but instead she rose, ejecting Toby from her lap, and pushed her chair under the table. “I think I’ll go and look for those recipes now,” she said.