She pulled a roll of masking tape and a marker from a drawer, wrote a label, and stuck it on the jar, where I read Live Starter from Lena. “We didn’t have a bunch of money, but we always ate well. My aunt was doing farm-to-table before it was ever a thing. I saw a jar like this on Pinterest, fancied up with a ‘friendship starter’ label. How many of those do you think get tossed out?”

I wrapped my hands around the jar and raised it to my face, inhaling a smell like good beer. It turned out that if you wanted to make sourdough, you either needed to start three days ahead of time or have an heirloom starter like this one, from Lena’s aunt to Lena to me. I said, “My mom was a school nurse. She was always pretty tired, so dinners were quick and easy. Fish sticks, mac and cheese, soup from a can. She didn’t make anything like this.”

More than the food, I remembered sitting around the table, the kitchen light shining down on my mom, my dad, and the three of us girls. That place felt safe. Even if you didn’t clear your plate, even if you hated vegetables with a fiery passion, even if your sister flicked peas or kicked you, our kitchen table was a place the darkness couldn’t touch.

Could I ever create something like that with Michael? A haven. A family.

Then Lena patted an open expanse of counter. “Time for the fun part. We’re going to beat the shit out of this dough.”

But my mind wasn’t on baking anymore. “Will you pass this starter on to your kids?”

For a second, her face went blank, and then she blinked and squinted. “Kids? Not my thing.”

She shook flour onto the counter and dumped the glob of dough onto it. With a rough motion, she tore the mass in two and pushed one a little closer to me. “First we knead it, then we’ll let it rise. Watch.” With force, she pressed and turned and thumped the dough, frowning at it. I got the feeling she was irritated with me.

But where could I have done something wrong or crossed the line? I tried to imitate her motions, pushing with the heels of my hands as the mass became smoother and more resistant.

Then she asked, “So, babies in your future?”

I thought about the feeling of sitting around the kitchen table with my sisters and my parents, the way Rahmia’s head had tilted down to hear her son. My own niece and nephew. The way Michael and I woke each morning in a bed big enough for a brood of kids and a dog. We had room in our house, room in our lives for more now, and I said, “Maybe.”