She stood in the narrow hallway, under the light, the dark come so early now. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, her hat low over her eyes, she was brushing snow off her coat, stamping her boots on the mat. And laden with paper bags, groceries. She’d been to the greengrocer at the corner. Oh mom, she said. I saw Kerry James Marshall too. Incredible. You must go. I was pleased, pleased she had done something for herself, not just come to check up on me, cook for me.

And she cooked, she cooked dinner in the narrow kitchen, an ancient kitchen, I’ve never bothered to fix it up. Sometimes that annoyed Howard, Jacqueline, he’d say, get someone in to redesign it, you can have a better kitchen you know. I knew, other people had said that too, but I had no interest in another kitchen. And Helena, even Helena who loved to cook, would manage with it just fine.

I’ve got a new thing, she said. A bone broth, I’m going to make you a bone broth, and leave it with you in jars, then you can have some every day, until I come next. She’d bought a dozen glass jars, the old-fashioned kind with screw-top lids, she went to pick them up later, she couldn’t carry it all, before.

I saw how much she enjoyed all this, and I was happy. But later as I stood watching her make the broth, I remembered . . . I remembered Emily, Emily and her soup, the gruel she made for us all when we were sick. For Joseph. Even for Joseph.

Standing in the narrow doorway I watched Helena chopping onions, then carrots, celery, there were other vegetables: she’d bought it all. She filled my largest pot, a giant stock pot, with water, and then, from the last paper bag, she took out a clear bag of bones. Large animal — beef — bones. Six, seven of them. And finally, two large chicken legs, or perhaps they were turkey legs, they were so large. She’d been to the butcher. I was alarmed at first, I don’t like so much meat, sometimes meat makes me afraid. And what would I do with all that broth? It would be too much. I didn’t say this, I didn’t want to offend Helena. She put spices into the pot, she looked through my cupboard, filled with old spices I was sure were out-of-date and dead, but Helena found the peppercorns, the coriander seeds. You can put anything in this broth, Mom. Parsley, she said. She measured two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar from the bottle she had bought, and turned the stove on.

She talked about her son Nicholas, about him at university and about other things, as I watched the pot, the water, start to boil. I could see the large bones, I imagined their deep cavities, marrowed.

And then I remembered Emily, and the marrow bones at our house in Johannesburg, and the broth, the life-giving broth she had fed us.